The Story
NEON DREAMS is an intimate documentary about legacy, migration, and a disappearing craft, told through the story of a family of master neon artisans and family of filmmaker Stephanie Romero. Rooted in Los Angeles, the film honors the immigrant hands behind an art form that has shaped the city for decades and is now at risk of disappearing.
NEON DREAMS is Stephanie’s effort to preserve the artistry and lives of the makers who often go unseen.
Pilar
PILAR learned to bend neon at the age of eleven. Her father taught her, and he made small tools customized for her hands when he saw her interest and talent. She worked daily for her father and later for neon shops across Los Angeles, eventually becoming known as a master in the field.
She later stepped away from neon when she became a mother, leaving the trade to raise her daughter, Stephanie. The film follows her return to the craft and the emotional history that lives inside that return.
Visual Approach
Neon Dreams is shot on analog 16 mm film to honor an analog craft. The medium holds neon’s color, texture, and glow in a way that feels true to the material. The visual language blends portraiture, process, and memory.
The film features interviews and voiceovers from Stephanie’s family, alongside carefully composed portraits of them, inspired by still photography and b-roll of neon being made.
Observational footage follows hands through the stages of the craft, capturing the patience, heat, and precision behind each piece.
Archival materials, including VHS footage, film, and photographs, connect past and present and reveal a lineage built through labor and love.
Why NOw
NEON DREAMS preserves a disappearing art form and the people who carry its history. Neon is vanishing in real time, and with it, the lived knowledge of the artisans who built it, the community around it, and the stories behind the glow many people take for granted.
The film documents craftsmanship, labor, and immigrant success stories that have often remained in the background, and it does so through an analog medium that mirrors its subject.
Told from inside the world of neon, the film offers a perspective shaped by proximity, reverence, and lived experience. With rare access through her family, director and producer Stephanie Romero films with intimacy, trust, and care.
NEON DREAMS is both a cultural record and a personal portrait, holding the glow while it is still here.