Hari Sama

Hari Sama is a Mexican gay filmmaker born in Mexico City in 1967, known for This Is Not Berlin (2019), which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and follows a teenager's immersion into Mexico City's underground art and queer party scene in 1986 — a vivid, autobiographically inspired portrait of gay desire and artistic bohemia in 1980s Mexico during the AIDS era. Sama has spoken about drawing directly on his own adolescence in the queer artistic communities that shaped the film, and about wanting to capture a specific, little-documented chapter of Mexican counterculture with honesty rather than nostalgia. The film was among the most acclaimed Mexican queer films of its decade, screening at festivals worldwide after its Sundance debut.