“We are living in a time in which people are questioning the scope of humanity. I’m proud to be part of anything that defends intellectual freedom and prompts discussion,” María Fernanda Flores said of her work as assistant editor for the production of The Librarians, the 2026 Prime Time Emmy Award Winner for Exceptional Merit in Documentary Filmmaking.
Flores, who grew up in Laredo and now resides in Brooklyn, NY, is a graduate of J.B. Alexander High School and a 2018 graduate of the University of Texas-Austin with a degree in Radio/TV/Film.
The Librarians, a PBS Independent Lens documentary, is a masterful push back at censorship of libraries, book banning, and the vilification of librarians.
“I provided executive support to director Kim A. Snyder and producer Janique L. Robillard. In post-production I prepped footage, organized projects, and supported the lead editors,” she said.
Flores considers Snyder and Robillard mentors. The Librarians is the second of their documentaries for which Flores has worked as an editor. The first was 2024 Oscar- nominated Death by Numbers, written and told by Samantha Fuentes, a wounded survivor of the 2018 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. The planned massacre by Nikolas Jacob Cruz claimed 14 students, a coach, a teacher, and the school’s athletic director. Cruz, a former student at the high school, is serving 34 consecutive life sentences.
Flores was editedf Ter, written and directed by María Luisa Santos and selected for its world premiere at the 2020 SXSW Film Festival. It was also broadcast by PBS.
She edited Ahoy!, a post-apocalyptic tale told on a ship asea because there is no more land. The short film was written and directed by Julian Alvarez.
Ahoy, the only child on the ship, carries the story as he discovers a map for a place called “land” that he has dreamed of visiting.
There is a grace to the rapid-fire visuals that inform that the ship is home to a colony of survivors, that they eat from the sea and raise vegetables on the ship, that they desalinate their water, that the ship’s crow’s nest is a metal grocery cart, that a stationary exercise bicycle is their wind power, that Ahoy is beloved and is their symbol of hope, that when Ahoy swims to land, they are locked hand-in-hand in prayer that he return.
The 14-minute 2025 film is narrated in sea shanty, a genre of maritime folk song akin to pirate-speak. Ahoy! was filmed off the coast of Maryland.
It was a visual and emotional adventure to have been drawn into a story so well told.
Flores is working with fellow Laredoan Karen Gaytan to edit a documentary about Laredo’s Olympian boxer, Jennifer Lozano.
Of her hometown, Flores said, “There’s a magic thing about Laredo, a deceptively ordinary looking town where people overlook that they are living in great emotional experiences.
“There is language and family, but it’s what’s underneath — the powerful memories that are the crux of my emotional and artistic language. Laredo is where I became a person, where I learned my biggest lessons. I would not be who I am had I not grown up there. We lived in the United States, but Laredo was different. That is something I want to tell.
“There is something lovely about Mexican culture and family forming the emotional nuance of a person and how that develops, which is very powerful.”
