I Carry You with Me

Watch the drama I Carry You with Me (Te llevo conmigo, 2021) online on iFILM. Director Heidi Ewing reconstructs an actual romance: in small-town Mexico, an aspiring cook named Iván meets a teacher, Gerardo, and what starts as one night stretches across three decades.

Iván wants his own kitchen. His hometown offers him neither the career nor the freedom to love a man in the open, so he risks an illegal crossing into New York and leaves Gerardo behind. Years of distance follow — a strange city, dishwashing instead of cheffing, and the quiet cost of chasing a future you can't share with the person you left. Armando Espitia and Christian Vazquez carry the leads.

Ewing came to fiction from documentary work, and it shows: stretches of the film play almost like footage of real lives, with the actual men behind the story appearing on screen. The picture took the audience award at Sundance. A restrained, honest love story for anyone who cares more about real people than plot twists. Stream I Carry You with Me (2021) online on iFILM.