LOS ANGELES — A mother, wife, filmmaker and actress.

It’s all part of Selina Ringel’s life and what inspires her movies.

“The more you write to you, then the more other people can relate to you,” she said as she played with her 2-year-old son.

That is why she used her own pregnancy to make her latest film, “Single Mother by Choice.”

“As a performer I knew it was going to be hard to be cast in certain things because it’s hard when you’re pregnant and so my husband had this amazing idea, why don’t we film once a month during your entire pregnancy, kind of like boyhood and we see you have the baby in real time,” she said.

It’s a fictional feature tracking her pregnancy, but there were challenges and issues.

First she had a miscarriage, then COVID-19 hit three months into shooting.

“We have to make this decision, like are we going to keep making this movie,” she said.

They continued, incorporating the pandemic and nationwide protests over racial injustice. Her movie is now one of the films being featured during the Hola Mexico Film Festival on a night they celebrate Latina filmmakers.

Samuel Douek, the festival founder and director, said Ringel is an example to up-and-coming filmmakers because she was once part of the festival’s Tomorrow’s Filmmakers Today program.

“It’s our opportunity to give back to the filmmaker community and Latino Hispanic community enter the industry without breaking that bond between Mexico and Hollywood,” Douek said.

Ringel said the movie is not only deeply personal because she incorporated her pregnancy but, like her, the character she plays in the movie is also Latina.

“The more honest you are, the more people say, ‘I see myself in that and that’s how I live and that’s how my life is,'" she said.