When corruption in society meets the consequences of those who came before us, can we escape the crimes of our ancestors?
Boise State Associate Professor of Illustration Roland Becerra’s film and graphic novel, “AGATHA”, explores the realities of a post-industrial Bridgeport, Conn., rooted in the town’s history of executing “witches” in the 1600s.
Becerra’s film recently received the Idaho Commission on the Arts Fellowship and has previously won over 30 awards.
Originally from Miami, Fla., Becerra studied fashion and costume design at an arts high school before pursuing his undergraduate degree in painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, later receiving his master’s from Yale University.
As his career developed, Becerra felt drawn to film and graphic novels, which led him to develop a unique art style he describes as “experimental animation”.
The haunting tale of “AGATHA” is a decade in the making and follows the story of a professor with terminal cancer, a secret society of modern-day witches and Agatha, a mourning mother facing cosmic consequences.
Becerra’s idea for the film originated from his time living in Bridgeport, which he described as an “industrial wasteland”.
“I like to make films that are grounded in the history of where I’m at,” Becerra said. “I wanted to mirror contemporary ideas of how modern people will pay the price of what our ancestors did.”
As the director of the film, Becerra used rotoscoping, an animation technique that combines real actors and digital painting to create realistic movement in his film. He then turned it into a 170-page graphic novel using his hand-drawn illustrations and digitally added coloring and text.
“We bled to make ‘AGATHA’,” Becerra said. “The music, the sound of it, everything was to be more of a visual experience than a plot-driven movie.”
The team behind the project consisted of Becerra, composer and sound designer Jeremy Santiago-Horseman and Becerra’s wife, Kelly Bigelow Becerra, who assisted Becerra with directing, costume design and working with the actors.
During the production process, Bigelow Becerra was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The film eventually received attention from distribution companies and Los Angeles-based film companies, but after his wife’s death, Becerra said he “put [the film] on sabbatical” and “stopped taking calls”.
The film was eventually completed in 2022 and has since appeared in over 50 film festivals.
Today, Becerra does not have plans to release the film and is “ready for the next thing” in his career. However, he expressed that he may revisit working on the film in the future and is open to the possibility of signing a distribution agreement, should he find a distributor whom he trusts.
“I never wanted to direct alone, and our energies fit together,” Becerra said. “I want to make sure that she would’ve wanted this to be released the way it is.”
Santiago-Horseman met Becerra while taking his class at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts in Connecticut and the two later became colleagues. He also attended graduate school at Syracuse University, where he studied painting and music.
Since the production team was so small, Santiago-Horseman described working on the project as an intimate and hands-on experience.
“There was no distance there, I was in the middle of everything,” Santiago-Horseman said. “That really enriched the ability to produce sound as good as it can be.”
As the composer and sound designer, Santiago-Horseman created the film’s sounds and music “from the ground up,” with little third-party sound development. He noted this project required him to use older recording techniques mixed with digital processes to capture sound, as well as get creative with mimicking specific sounds that were more difficult to record.
“When you start to build these textures over the top of each other, you really start to create a believable universe,” Santiago-Horseman said.
Santiago-Horseman also believes in visual experiences that create a “sensory crossover” between sound and sight, and described working with conventional sound as a “very musical process.”
“For me, as a musician and sound designer, I tend to not differentiate between the two roles because what you hear in nature is rhythmic and harmonious no more than traditional music,” Santiago-Horseman said.
Becerra and Santiago-Horseman noted the importance of straying away from Artificial Intelligence in the arts, a concept that became more popular since the start of creating “AGATHA”.
“It is impressive in what it can do, but it is still hollow and dead to me,” Becerra said. “I can feel the presence of the filmmaker that only humans can bring to a movie.”
Becerra said he encourages his students to explore their originality and integrity, and to “tell a story nobody else has told”, no matter how small an audience it impacts.
Boise State student Jefferson Cordovero said after taking Becerra’s class in the spring of 2025, he felt compelled to explore original ideas and attention to detail to strengthen his skills.
“I could tell that he really wanted us to push original ideas and not just create something easy,” Cordovero said.
As an independent film, “AGATHA” was solely created and produced by Becerra and his team. Santiago noted the advantages to the independent film industry and encouraged students to keep that in mind when telling their original stories and ideas as artists.
“When names are just numbers on a page, that’s when we’ve lost the point,” Santiago said.
Although “AGATHA” has not been released, it continues to play in film festivals and showings of Becerra’s work. His current solo painting exhibition at Idaho State University in Pocatello will run until the end of October, with a screening of “AGATHA” to close out the exhibit.
