Many of the films showcased at the Boston International Film Festival this past week are the standard indie fare. Somber dramas, documentaries and quirky shorts dominate the schedule, which is no surprise. “Immigration Tango,” however, is a little bit different.

This romantic comedy, directed by David Burton Morris and written by Morris with Martin L. Kelley, Robert J. Lee, Todd Norwood and Elika Portnoy, is definitely more lighthearted than what you usually see at an independent film fest.

Starring Portnoy (who is also the film’s producer), Carlos Leon, McCaleb Burnett and Ashley Wolfe, “Immigration Tango” tells the story of two couples, one American and one foreign, who must swap partners so two of them can gain citizenship in the U.S. What starts out as a simple agreement ends up complicating and straining the relationships between the four. Think “The Proposal” times two.

Amidst the background of ringing phones and hustling publicists, Leon and Portnoy were able to take some time away from the run up to the movie’s premiere this past Friday at the BIFF. The movie also had the honor of closing out the festival on Sunday. The Bulgarian born Portnoy now lives in Boston, and her 2008 movie, “Tricks of a Woman,” had its North American premiere at the festival.

Leon, whose credits include “Ugly Betty,” “Law and Order” and “Law and Order: SVU,” worked with Portnoy on “Tricks of a Woman.” Portnoy wrote (with Todd Norwood and Richard Lasser) and produced, and also starred in “Tricks.”

Even though it is a romantic comedy, the film’s premise does have its roots in the immigration issue, and this contemporary aspect appealed to Leon.

“We actually address the immigration problem in the U.S. I’m in a relationship, and my girlfriend, she's Danish,” he said. “You realize how difficult it is to be a citizen in the United States. So I utilized a lot of my own experience in the movie. My parents are from Cuba; I’m born and raised in the U.S., but I don’t think it was that difficult back in the 1960s and 1970s to become a citizen of the States. It’s getting more difficult.”

The small budget and intimate shooting environment allowed the actors a lot of freedom with the script. The cast stayed with the basics of the screenplay, but there was room for improvisation.

“There is so much room for creativity,” Leon said. “It was amazing. They trust you and you'll definitely give the script its props and respect the script, but using your own way of doing it to work so perfectly.”

Portnoy echoes that sentiment; several of the cast members from “Immigration Tango” were also in “Tricks of a Woman,” so she knows their capabilities and strengths. The rapport between the cast helped the shoot go smoothly.

“There is a lot of trust and it is better when the actors have a lot of chemistry. What helps this movie is that all four of us that play the main characters are very similar to the people we are in real life.”

In Morris, she had a director she trusted, and once filming started, she allowed him to do his job.

“David has a lot of experience; I trust his opinions,” Portnoy said.  “He's done over twenty movies so he really knows a lot more about movies than I do. He’s really great at cutting things that were not fitting in, and I had great fun editing with him.”

Portnoy said that nothing major changed between the shooting script of “Tango” and the finished product, but there were some scenes that had to be cut in order to make a tighter movie.

“There were little surprises. Things sometimes work out better than you thought or sometimes worse than what you think,” she said. “It was different seeing the things that I thought were better, but weren’t in the end. There was just some cutting. We had a long script so there was room to cut, but we told the story a lot better. We didn’t have a lot of re-shoots. All of the beats of the story were there.”

For the actors, the environment of collaboration led to a positive experience. Leon compared working on a film like “Immigration Tango” and some of the big budget shows and movies he’s worked on. It’s a paradox that many actors face. They enjoy the trappings of major productions, but independent projects often allow for a different type of experience where they get to enjoy the freedom that a smaller cast and crew fosters.

“When you work on major productions there are a lot of things that are great, the comforts, of not changing in the street,” he said with a laugh. “But there are things that I love in the independent world. You don't have the luxury but at the same time you have the freedom. I wish we had more money in the independent world, but then, you’d have to accept the changes.”

As a producer and writer, Portnoy had taken a few lessons from “Tricks” and applied them to her experience on “Immigration Tango.” She feels that she possibly over extended herself with “Tricks,” and this time around she could trust the people she hired while she could concentrate on her performance during filming.

“That was the case with the first movie because I did a lot of producing during filming,” Portnoy said. “But the second movie, I was a little smarter about it. I just hired better people and I didn't do as much producing during production. Obviously, before and after, I do a lot during pre- and post production. I made very few decisions during production. It was nice to concentrate only on acting.”

Portnoy, of course, has to worry about more than just her performance or even the production of the movie. As an independent filmmaker, one of the biggest challenges she faces is getting a film distributed. She says that while she’ll probably work with the same distributor she did on “Tricks of a Woman,” that remains the trickiest part of the business, especially with new media coming into the fold.

“The hardest part for me is distribution, because it’s the one thing that I haven’t figured out how to do. A lot of film producers say the best thing is to distribute the film yourself. I think that's possible in the States but internationally it's not possible.”

After Boston, the film will be shown at the Palm Beach Film Festival. Portnoy has applied to other festivals, and is waiting to see what’s next. A possibility is the Monaco Film Festival, where “Tricks of a Woman” did very well, winning several awards.

For Portnoy, she has a simple message for people who are interested in the film.

“Come see it, and have fun. That’s all.”