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I´m a storyteller
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I manage multidisciplinary, cultural and creative projects
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I´m a film/video producer and director
We´re each made up of stories and our backgrounds can be our strengths if we're kind enough to open up to other people´s points of view.
Although singing, dancing and drawing are definitely not my strengths I do think I am patient, consistent and creative. I love languages and deciphering culture through their use and practice, but I'm by far more of a listener than a talker.
I enjoy the multiple ways of storytelling. Whether it's video in the shape of a documentary, an educational Children's tv series or something as short and clever as a Tik Tok. Yet, it is when people come together that actual magic takes place. Whether this happens by making a movie or by creating the space for people to gather, say a festival, a conference, a picnic and now a days... yes! Even a zoom call.
Images behold power, therefore the use we make of them is one of my greatest concerns. This thought brings me to a feeling of deep responsibility for the images I create.
Here are some facts
I was born in Quito, Ecuador. I´m fluent in Spanish, French and English. My German is Austrian and it is quite rusty nowadays. For the past 10 years I´ve been the inboud coordinator for Portland State University´s Speech Language Pathologists summer program. I studied Film and now hold a master´s degree in visual anthropology. I started out in 2002 as an Assistant director in the Ecuadorian film and advertising industry. I later became an advertising director. In 2008 I developed a cultural project of my own with indigenous communities throughout Ecuador. I also created Ecuador´s first Deaf film festival. This eventually led me back to film in it´s documentary format. I was later on very lucky to be assigned a couple of educational tv series for children. They all aired on national television. During the pandemic I worked on an interactive web documentary on the arts and crafts of elderly people in the heart of Quito´s historic district. I recently finished a tv series on the uses of public space and road safety for young adults. I occasionally edit videos for Proteknon and The Alliance for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action.
A brief description with links to various projects
The last of my audiovisual projects (2022-23) is a youth series on road safety and the uses of public space. It was filmed in Santo Domingo de los Tsa'chilas and is called Juégate la calle. It is being broadcasted on a local channel, Zaracay TV and can be seen on Social Media like Facebook, Instagra, tiktok and youtube.
I also directed and wrote the children's series El equipo invincible, produced by Zonacuario for the United for healthy children from Nestle. We created 3 seasons. A chapter was nominated to the Prix Jeunesse 2018 festival in Munich, Germany. Previously I directed the TV series Atrapasueños and El Diván. I produced and co-wrote the documentary El secreto de la luz, a project that won the DocTv Latin America award for Ecuador. I have been a teacher at UDLA University in the BA of animation and film.
I created and ran Así Dicen Mis Abuelos. It is a project that collects, shares and disseminates the ancestral knowledge and oral tradition of Ecuador. The first and most important step of this project is the field work that through art aims to link the community in a process that works the memory, revitalizes the language and promotes intergenerational relationships. From this I edited a series of books and generated films in collaboration with the communities. In 2012 this project received an honorable mention for best children's publication from the Alas-BID program. The materials were returned to the communities through an intercultural festival. ADMA works hand in hand with Oralidad Modernidad, which seeks to document and revitalize the languages of Ecuador.
Festival Cine Sordo (2012), Deaf Film Festival was the first of its kind in Latin America. Intended to bring together the deaf and hearing communities. It was held in Quito, Guayaquil and Cuenca and included film screenings, an acting workshops, a subtitling workshop, talks and screenings for schools, as well as two days of lectures at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Quito.
Atrapasueños is a children's series produced for Educa TV that premiered on November 23, 2015. Children from different corners of Ecuador narrate dreams they´ve had and these become animations. Ecuador´s cultural diversity can be seen, heard and felt. Look for it on youtube.
El Diván is a series for young people and adults about interculturality as part of everyday life. It was broadcasted nationally through many Ecuadorian tv chains. It can also be seen online on youtube or in the links on this web page.
And finally a synopsis of El secreto de la luz a film I wrote and produced. A look at 20th century Ecuador narrated through the work of the Swedish explorer Rolf Blomberg: his books and films, his photographs and illustrations are the archival material that make up this documentary. Blomberg arrived in 1934 to study the Galapagos Islands and destiny brought him back as many times as necessary to make Quito his center of operations. He explored Ecuador like few others and created a complex and exciting work whose re-reading, today, offers us an unpublished portrait of this country.