Making Movies Releases Una Vida, a Deeply Personal New Album

Kansas City-based Latin rock band releases Una Vida on October 30; international tour underway

Official video for “Nadie Sabe (roc’n’rol),” featuring Café Tacvba’s Rubén Albarrán, premieres alongside the album

KANSAS CITY, MO — October 30, 2026 — Making Movies released Una Vida on October 30, 2026, marking the Kansas City-based Latin rock band’s most personal and expansive album to date. Across ten songs, the record traces a life through memory, heritage, family, and home, connecting the traditions of frontman Enrique Javier Chi’s Panamanian roots with the band’s singular blend of Latin music and rock & roll.

Alongside the album, Making Movies releases the official video for “Nadie Sabe (roc’n’rol),” featuring Café Tacvba frontman Rubén Albarrán. The video was directed by William J. Stribling and filmed in Mexico City and Kansas City. Watch it here. “The idea for this music video came from years spent working with Enrique on a documentary project tracing the origins of rock and roll to Latin and African rhythms,” says Stribling. “Back to the Future has that great joke where Marty McFly accidentally hands Chuck Berry his own sound. So our version is a bit of revisionist history, giving some credit where credit is due. But I knew it would only work if we could nail the homage on a visual level.”

Una Vida was recorded across five studios and a patchwork of homes, hotels, and an Airbnb in Memphis, Kansas City, Panama, Portland, New York, and Paonia. The album’s geography is central to its story: a record made in motion, shaped by the people and places that have defined Chi’s life and the community that surrounds Making Movies.

Musically, the album draws from Panamanian traditions including mejorana, socavón, and tamborito, folding those sounds into the band’s Latin rock vocabulary. The result is a record that moves fluidly between generations and cultures while remaining grounded in the intimacy of family and lived experience.

The album’s title track, “Una Vida,” draws directly from the poetry of Esther Urieta De Real, while guest appearances from Kevin Morby and Rubén Albarrán expand the record’s musical conversation. Making Movies’ previously released singles have offered an introduction to that world, including “This Is a Photograph (bajo el sol de Panamá)” featuring Kevin Morby and “Déjala,” a collaboration with Lilo Sanchez. The “Ámame / Lover” double single, released October 9, served as the final preview of the album.

“Much of this album was written while I was back in Panamá, saying goodbye to my grandparents,” says Enrique Javier Chi. “In that time I longed for a close bond with my maternal grandmother, but it felt like something was blocking that intimacy. Toward the end of her life she handed me a book of her poetry and said, ‘perhaps this could inspire a song in you.’ It did. The title track, ‘Una Vida,’ became the spiritual center of the record and let me connect with her beyond the grave. At its core, Una Vida is about embracing the moment. We’re only guaranteed this one life, and we don’t get answers to most of life’s biggest questions. I hope this music can be a place to sit with some of that uncertainty and dance through the rest. That’s roc’n’roll.”

Produced by Ben Yonas and Enrique Javier Chi, Una Vida is a family and community affair. The album considers what it means to inherit a history, carry it across borders and generations, and find a sense of home along the way.

At its heart, Una Vida is an album about the fullness of a life — the people, places, traditions, relationships, memories, and contradictions that make a story worth telling.

Anabel
This Is a Photograph (bajo el sol de Panamá)
Déjala
Una Vida
Ámame
Santiago
No Tengo Razón
Nadie Sabe (roc’n’rol)
Que Viva…
Lover

Making Movies will take Una Vida on the road this fall and winter with an extensive international tour spanning Panama, Mexico, the United States, Canada, and beyond.

The tour launches in Panama City on October 19, shortly after the release of the album’s final pre-release single, before continuing through Guadalajara and Mexico City and returning to the United States for dates across the Midwest, Northeast, West Coast, and South. The band will also perform in Winnipeg, Toronto, London, and other Canadian cities.

Una Vida Tour Dates

10/19/26 — Panama City, Panama — Casa 25
10/24/26 — Guadalajara, Mexico — Jardín Castellanos
10/28/26 — Mexico City, Mexico — Chico
10/31/26 — Minneapolis, MN — Festival de Las Calaveras
11/04/26 — Winnipeg, MB — West End Cultural Centre
11/06/26 — Topeka, KS — Tonix and Tunes
11/07/26 — Kansas City, MO — Folly Theater
11/08/26 — Emporia, KS — 10West
11/10/26 — Columbus, OH — Woodlands Tavern
11/13/26 — Wellfleet, MA — WHAT Theater
11/14/26 — Provincetown, MA — Fishermen Hall
11/17/26 — New York City, NY — Mercury Lounge
11/20/26 — Toronto, ON — Supermarket
11/21/26 — London, ON — London Brewing Cooperative
11/22/26 — Chicago, IL — Reggies Music Joint
11/24/26 — Ann Arbor, MI — The Ark
12/01/26 — Wichita, KS — Odd Fellow Hall
12/03/26 — Santa Fe, NM — The Marigold Room
12/04/26 — Taos, NM — Secret Show
12/05/26 — Silver City, NM — Whiskey Creek Zócalo
12/07/26 — Tucson, AZ — Club Congress
12/09/26 — Los Angeles, CA — The Paramount
12/10/26 — San Francisco, CA — The Great Northern
12/12/26 — Eugene, OR — WOW Hall
12/15/26 — Portland, OR — Alberta Rose Theater
12/16/26 — Newport, OR — Primaltones
12/17/26 — Lincoln City, OR — Lincoln City Cultural Center
12/18/26 — Vashon, WA — Open Space
12/19/26 — Mount Vernon, WA — White Branches
12/20/26 — Seattle, WA — Nectar Lounge
01/23/27 — Atlanta, GA — The Garden Club at Wild Heaven West End
01/24/27 — Memphis, TN — The Green Room at Crosstown Arts

Additional dates and ticket information to be announced.

Una Vida is out October 30, 2026.

About Making Movies

Making Movies is the Latin Grammy–nominated group led by Enrique Chi — born in Santiago, Panamá, and raised in the American Midwest — forging a sound guided by tradition, yet unmistakably its own.

The band has been described by Rolling Stone as “an eclectic blend of rumbero percussion, delicate organs, and grungy fuzz,” while NPR calls the project “perhaps one of the most unique groups around today.”

Their sound is anchored in the rich rhythmic traditions of Panamá and delivered with the force of a psychedelic rock show. Chi weaves the mejorana, a traditional hand-made instrument rarely heard outside of Panamá, into each performance.

Making Movies’ is collaborative across genres, working with artists from Rubén Blades to Kevin Morby, and David Hidalgo (Los Lobos) to Hurray for the Riff Raff. Most notably, Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) has served as a guiding force for the band — functioning as a spiritual band member, producer, and mentor.

Connect with Making Movies: Website | Instagram | TikTok | Facebook | YouTube

Press Contact:
Larissa Carpinteyro
laracarpinteyro@gmail.com