Two Years Ago She Graduated From North Campus—Now Her Short Film Is Airing On PBS

Mariana Serrano became fascinated with scissors when she was in kindergarten.

Serrano used them to cut everything. She made holes in her shirts and even clipped chunks of her hair off during an impromptu haircut once. 

“I had to go straight to the beauty salon and they had to fix me up,” said Serrano, who is now 26. “I had a very short haircut for a while. All my older sisters’ friends thought that [I was her] brother but it was just me with really short hair.”

Serrano—who graduated from Miami Dade College in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in film, television and digital production—turned her kindergarten scissor phase into a professional success.

The event inspired her latest project, a short film about a six-year-old girl who faces backlash based on culturally imposed beauty standards after cutting her own hair. The 15-minute film, Un Pequeño Corte, will air on PBS July 13 at 9 p.m.

“[The film] really is a lot about culture and identity,” said Serrano, who wrote and directed the project. “I hope that that’s the big takeaway for the audience.”

This isn’t the first time Serrano has partnered with PBS.

Three years after joining the School of Entertainment & Design Technology at North Campus in 2016, Serrano successfully submitted her thesis project—a short film called Escapé about a  man trapped in a monotonous marriage who goes looking for a new love interest—for the third season of South Florida PBS’ Film-Maker Project.

“She understood from the very beginning how important it was to surround yourself with the most talented and the smartest people,” said film professor Adrian Garcia, who helped Serrano with her thesis project. “Kudos to her for not only being very ambitious [but also] a visionary with a unique idea and approach to things.”

A year after graduating from MDC, a PBS representative told Serrano the network was seeking  submissions from Latinx filmmakers who wanted to participate in The Latino Experience, a new three-part showcase of short films that explore the identity and culture of the Latinx community.

Un Pequeño Corte was one of 13 films, from more than 300 applications, selected for the project. Submissions were judged by a jury of experienced filmmakers and were eligible for support grants between $5,000 and $25,000.

To make the film happen, Serrano recruited a team of about 20 crew members, nine principal actors—including three kids—and about 30 children as background actors. 

They faced various challenges, including finding a school to shoot the project at because most facilities were closed due to COVID-19 and working with a budget that was smaller than a project of their caliber called for. Fortunately, many crew members worked for free or little pay.  

“It’s like every time you look the other way, there [was] an issue,” Serrano said. “Thankfully, I had a great team where everyone was all hands on deck.”

Colleagues describe Serrano as a relentless, diligent and driven filmmaker with a natural ability to seamlessly portray meaningful storylines.

“She is a brilliant writer and director,” said Mark Adam Pulaski, producer of Un Pequeño Corte. “I’ve worked in the industry for about eight years now [on] some bigger projects and [with] more professional directors, but I genuinely think that Mariana is the best one that I’ve worked with.”

In addition to her project with PBS, Serrano has worked as a freelancer with streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. One of the gigs was as a travel assistant for two episodes of the comedy series The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel—one of her favorite shows. 

Serrano, who hopes to continue writing and directing films, is currently working on her first feature-length script and on a couple of new original short films.

“I think she represents the best of what MDC has to offer,” said Agustin Gonzalez, one of Serrano’s film professors at the College. “You see it in her, a sort of spirit of wanting to do the work beyond school and to continue doing it and to find the opportunity [to succeed] in her career and her art.”