Join us live for a virtual meet and greet with the filmmakers of Chicago Cinema Exchange: Mexico City, moderated by Rocío Santos (Domingos en Vocalo). Click to watch the Q&A on Facebook live.
Fernanda Tovar
Mi edad, la tuya y la edad del mundo
Fernanda was born on October 19, 1991 in Mexico City. She studied at the Facultad de filosofía y letras at the UNAM and the Escuela Activa de Fotografía. Later, she began her studies at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC) with a specialty in direction. In 2018, she completed a Master's Degree in Cinematography at the Escola Superior de Cinema I Audiovisuals de Catalunya (ESCAC) in Spain. From 2018 to 2019, she was a FONCA Jóvenes Creadores program fellow in the specialty of screenwriting. In 2020, she was part of Talents Guadalajara at the FICG.
Tania Hernández Velasco
TITIXE
Filmmaker and film programmer living in Mexico City, where she’s currently developing her second feature film. TITIXE, her first feature documentary in which she holds directing, editing, producing and photography credits, has been selected in more than 40 international film festivals and collected several awards. In 2019, she was selected as a Flaherty Seminar - Professional Development Fellow and received the Charles C. Guggenheim Emerging Artist Award. She holds a BA in Film (Centro de Diseño, Cine y TV, Mexico City), as well as a Postgraduate Diploma in Film Editing and a Masters in Creative Documentary (both from Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona).
Pegah Pasalar
Sunday
Pegah Pasalar (born in 1992) is an Iranian interdisciplinary artist currently based in Chicago. She received her bachelor’s degree from the Art University of Tehran majoring in cinema editing. She is a full-merit scholarship awardee at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she holds a master of fine arts in studio with an emphasis in film and video. The theme of her work is centred on the position of women in the family and society, social criticism of childhood and parenting, displacement and transitions. She reflects on these themes through different hybrid mediums and forms using a personal but holistic, poetic yet resonant way.
Pegah is currently continuing to work on a series of short films, each titled after a day of the week. After completion of Sunday, Saturday and Monday, she is now developing Tuesday. Each of these works takes place over the course of one day and the main protagonist is always a woman with contemporary concerns.
She has shown her works in multiple national and international festivals and venues such as: Athens International Film and video film festival, Onion City, Chicagoland shorts Vol. 6, Berlin Revolutionary Film Festival, Music Theatre, Gene Siskel, Logan Theater, and more.
Astrid Dominguez
We Vanish
Astrid is a director and producer originally from the state of Mexico. She began her career as an advertising director and directed over seventy commercials. In 2015, she was accepted into an MFA at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne, Australia, where she developed her graduation short film Las Desaparecidas (We Vanish). Astrid has based her work on topics related to the gender perspective and is currently developing her first feature film.
Jose Luis Benavides
Lulu en el Jardín
Jose Luis Benavides (b. 1986 Chicago, US) is a queer Latinx artist, filmmaker and educator. His work has been officially selected for various festivals including: Onion City, Chicago, US (2020); MSU Latinx Film Festival, Lansing, US (2020); Revolutions Per Minute Festival, Univ. of Mass. Boston, MA, US (2020); Istanbul International Film Festival, Istanbul, Turkey (2019); Mizna’s 14th Twin Cities Arab Film Festival, Minneapolis, MN, US (2019); CinHomo Muestra Internacional de Cine y Diversidad Sexual, Valladolid, ES (2019); Cadence Video Poetry Festival, Seattle, US (2019); and Collected Voices, Chicago, US (2018).
Otilia Padua
Birders
Mexican filmmaker. She studied architecture in Cambridge University and the Architectural Association, London. Her works include Tzolkin, Heaven mirrors everything and Three Voices. Three Voices won the Docs in Progress award from DocsMX and was later screened at SXSW, Ambulante, Morelia International Film Festival, DocsMX, Margaret Mead Film Festival, Documenta Madrid, Festival de Lima, FIDBA Buenos Aires and London MexFest. Otilia participated in the Berlinale Talents Doc Station (2011) and the Guadalajara Talents (2011). She has been a beneficiary of the Young Creator’s Program 2010 by the Ministry of Culture (CONACULTA), Film Creator’s Stimulus Program 2016 from the Mexican Institute of Cinematography (IMCINE) to develop her first feature film, and the Sundance Documentary Fund (2018) for the development of the short documentary Birders produced by No Ficción for Netflix.
