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Logline

After her mother’s funeral, a down-on-her-luck musician is hit by a car and wakes in 1995, where her seventeen-year-old mom drags her into a concert-ticket break-in, a shotgun getaway, and the deeply inconvenient realization that the woman she blamed for ruining her life was once a girl with dreams of her own.

Synopsis

Jackie Garcia is twenty-five, a talented musician who can sound like almost anybody except herself. Her mother, Ilana, has just died, and the two of them left an awful lot unsaid. When Jackie discovers a page in Ilana’s old diary describing how trapped she felt as a teenage mom, Jackie reads it as proof of something she has believed for years: she was the mistake that ruined her mother’s life.

Then Jackie gets hit by a car and wakes up in 1995.

Standing over her is Ilana at seventeen. Alive. Loud. Reckless. Hilarious. And completely unaware that the cranky stranger in front of her is her future daughter.

Jackie wants to get home. Ilana has other plans. Specifically, getting her hands on a pair of Maná concert tickets hidden inside a closed secondhand boutique. Ilana promises to help Jackie after one quick errand, which turns out to be a break-in. Suddenly Jackie is sporting an unwanted ’90s makeover, watching her mother play guitar, and sprinting from a very angry local while a shotgun makes a deeply unwelcome appearance.

Somehow, Jackie has become the responsible adult in a crime she never agreed to commit.

But in the quiet after the getaway, something shifts. Jackie sees the girl her mother was before bills, sacrifice, disappointment, and the title of Mom. Ilana is still infuriating. She’s also funny, brave, music-obsessed, and full of dreams Jackie never knew she had.

My Teen Mom is Trippin is a comedy about grief, bad choices, and the impossible gift of meeting your mother before she became your mother. Because sometimes the way to understand where you came from is to stop assuming you already know.

Meet the Filmmakers

Gabriela Revilla Lugo – Writer & Director
Gabriela Revilla Lugo is a Nicaraguan-born Jewtina writer, director, producer, and formerly undocumented immigrant who tells stories about complicated people finding their way back to themselves. She began in physical production, working on Damien Chazelle’s award-winning short Whiplash, and has worked on films including Palm Springs, The Starling, and Next Goal Wins. She wrote for ABC’s A Million Little Things and UCP’s Brujas, co-created 15 Candles for Peacock with Tanya Saracho and Selena Gomez, and wrote The Christmas Balloon for Mattel. Her directing work includes Illegally Brown and the Tubi feature The Secret Life of a Dominatrix. An alum of the Fox, Disney, and Starz writing programs, the WGA Showrunner Training Program, and NBC’s Female Forward, Gabby is also the daughter of a teen mother. My Teen Mom is Trippin is a very
personal love letter to the girls our mothers were before they were our mothers.

Sofia Rovaletti – Producer
Sofia Rovaletti is an Argentine producer and development executive whose career has taken her through film, documentary, advertising, and live events. She studied filmmaking at the Eliseo Subiela Film School and the National University of the Arts in Argentina and worked on productions including Lucrecia Martel’s Zama and Chris Weitz’s Operation Finale. After moving to Los Angeles in 2019, Sofia worked with Shoreline Entertainment and in development at MoJo Global Arts. Her producing credits include the feature Tender and the Latino Film Institute and Netflix fellowship short I F*cking Hate You. She brings both production experience and a strong story sense to My Teen Mom is Trippin, where the comedy has to move fast and the emotions have to feel real.

Mariscela Beatríz Méndez – Director of Photography
Mariscela Beatríz Méndez is a San Antonio-born, Mexican-American cinematographer drawn to stories about identity, women, and magical realism. Her credits include Las Hijas de Rosalía, executive produced by Lin-Manuel Miranda, and LA unit cinematography on the documentary Faithful Defenders. She won Best Cinematography at the 2025 Mexican-American Film & TV Festival for the short Vivir. A 2024 ReFrame Rise fellow, Mariscela is also an alum of the ASC Vision Mentor Program and Film Independent’s Project Involve, and a member of ICG Local 600. Her eye for grounded emotion and visually expressive storytelling is a natural fit for a film that moves from the weight of grief into the glorious, chaotic color of 1995.

Vince Sanchez-Sambrano – Production Designer
Vince Sanchez-Sambrano is a Venezuelan-born production designer, art director, and producer based in Los Angeles. His work includes The Shadow of the Sun, Venezuela’s submission for Best International Feature at the 96th Academy Awards, as well as Disney+’s 4Ever and a 2024 reinterpretation of Rebel Without a Cause. A member of the Art Directors Guild, IATSE Local 800, Vince has also designed projects for the LALIFF Inclusion Fellowship and led workshops for young filmmakers. On My Teen Mom is Trippin, the world of 1995 should feel lived in, not like a nostalgia-themed party. That means handwritten plans, cassette tapes, cheap jewelry, and the kind of bedroom that tells you who someone is before she says a word.

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Contact

For inquiries, please contact [email protected].