Wannabe is an 11-minute short film about two 13-year-old best friends hoping to win a contest and attend a Spice Girls concert in Miami.

Screenwriters Kat Cattani and Raul Martin set the film in Cayambe, Ecuador in 1996. It’s there where best friends Emilia (Martina Pacheco) and Mateo (Gabriel Saltos) decide to enter the contest. Emilia heard about the expense-paid video dance contest over the radio and then rushes over to tell Mateo at his house. I won’t spoil the ending but the Spanish-speaking film is sure to resonate with viewers. That being said, there are two Spice Girls songs feature prominently in the film: the titular “Wannabe” and “Who Do You Think You Are.”

Wannabe is not a long film by any means but it also shows that teens face the same challenges no matter where they grow up. Both of them dealt with bullying during their 1990s adolescent life and that’s something that I’m all too familiar with–growing up was not fun for this reason. It was made worse by the fact that I was closeted, trans, and didn’t even have the words to describe what I was feeling back in the late 1990s, let alone the early 2000s.

Kat Cattani’s filmography features a lot of editing work, but this is her fourth short film. Cattani’s work shows plenty of promise behind the camera should she ever decide to direct a feature-length film. You’ve probably watched her work over the years as an assistant editor and didn’t even know it. I don’t know what the film’s future run will look like but there are two additional opportunities to catch Wannabe in person at Tribeca.

There two crew members whose names I recognized from their work on other titles. The first is composer Nami Melumad, who also scores another project screening during Tribeca, the season 3 premiere of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds in the Tribeca TV program. The second name is cinematographer Matt Clegg, who lensed a pair of Solzy Award-winning comedies, Save Yourselves! and Bad Shabbos. The latter of which just premiered at Tribeca last summer and has its LA opening this weekend.

DIRECTOR: Kat Cattani
SCREENWRITERS: Kat Cattani, Raul Martin
CAST: Martina Pacheco, Gabriel Saltos

Wannabe held its world premiere during the 2025 Tribeca Festival in the Shorts: Showtime! program. Grade: 3.5/5

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