“Nearly There” hits the screen

A pecan farm, two brothers and a blue ghost gave Nancy Carol Flores a way to explore a question that had followed her long before she picked up filmmaking. What does one generation owe the next? 

That question sits at the center of “Nearly There,” a short film written and directed by Flores, a student in the Digital Film Media Arts program at Doña Ana Community College. The film follows twin brothers Carlos and Larry as they wrestle with different visions for an inherited family farm, placing a familiar southern New Mexico tension between preserving agricultural land and making room for development inside a story about family, inheritance and change. 

For Flores, the idea grew from a lifetime around agriculture. 

“I’ve been in agriculture my whole life,” Flores said. “My family, my mom’s family, and my grandparents were agriculturists. We had farms, we had orchards, and there’s always the issue of legacy, of inheritance.” 

Flores spent 29 years at New Mexico State University as an Extension food technology specialist before retiring in 2024. Her path toward filmmaking began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when she and students working with her produced a series of short instructional videos for the food-processing industry. 

The projects were practical, with demonstrations on washing hands, removing gloves, wearing hairnets and calibrating pH meters, but Flores found herself drawn to developing scripts, directing and collaborating with students. She eventually decided to pursue film more seriously at DACC. She began with screenwriting and photography before moving further into production. Being older than many of her classmates initially felt unusual, Flores said, but the experience quickly became collaborative. 

“The instructors at DACC are amazing. So are the students,” she said. “They didn’t treat me as some old lady.” 

Writing and directing came naturally, she said, while camera operation presented more of a learning curve. Those classes also connected Flores with the crew she would eventually use to make “Nearly There.” 

The screenplay came together quickly. Flores wrote an initial 14-page draft over a weekend before trimming it to about 10 pages with help from others in the local film community. Production became a class project, with fellow DACC students working in cinematography, sound, lighting, and other crew positions. 

Filming took place at NMSU’s Leyendecker agricultural research facility, a location Flores knew from her previous career. 

“It was a genuine team effort from the students at DACC,” Flores said. 

The farm at the heart of “Nearly There” was deliberate. Flores considered using a chile farm before settling on pecans, wanting the setting to feel tied to the Mesilla Valley. She also resisted making either brother’s plan for the property an easy answer. 

“We need housing in this valley,” Flores said. “But we don’t need to change it all at once.” 

Rather than cast one brother as right and the other as wrong, Flores wanted both choices to carry weight. An old pecan tree became one of the clearest expressions of that balance between what a family inherits and what it chooses to do next. 

“You got to look forward, but you can’t forget the past,” Flores said. “You got to remember the values of the past and use those to shape your decisions.” 

Flores also added something less expected to the family drama — a blue ghost. 

The character remains largely in the background before Carlos encounters him, bringing a supernatural element into an otherwise grounded story. Flores sees the ghost as a form of accumulated wisdom, something that can be present long before a person recognizes it. 

“He’s just there to make you think about what else is there,” Flores said. “He’s kind of like the wisdom that we all have, but we’re not always aware of.” 

The darker, blue-lit scenes between Carlos and the ghost became some of her favorites. Flores would have liked more time to develop the relationship between the brothers, though she joked, it might belong in another movie. 

The production brought its share of challenges, but Flores said the crew consistently showed up and made the project work. She credits that collaboration, along with the strength of the story, with carrying the film through its limitations. 

“I know that this film isn’t perfect,” Flores said. “But I think that as a first collaboration for myself and for others that were on this crew, I think it worked.” 

“Nearly There” will now take Flores back to the Silver City Community Film Festival, where her project is an official selection. The festival runs Oct. 1-4 at the Silco Theater in Silver City. Flores has attended the festival in previous years and returned last year as a producer and co-director on the DACC student film “Haunted & Holy.” 

She said she has watched the festival broaden beyond its earliest emphasis on Silver City-area work to include films from elsewhere in New Mexico. 

“I was really happy that it got accepted to Silver City,” Flores said. “I think it’s a local story, and I think it’s going to be well received there.”