Aurora Guerrero is a writer-director from

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Early life

Guerrero was born in the

Mission District The Mission District ( Spanish: ''Distrito de la Misión''), commonly known as The Mission ( Spanish: ''La Misión''), is a neighborhood in San Francisco, California. One of the oldest neighborhoods in San Francisco, the Mission District's name i ...

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

, California to Mexican immigrant parents, later growing up on the border of the cities of

Richmond Richmond most often refers to: * Richmond, Virginia, the capital of Virginia, United States * Richmond, London, a part of London * Richmond, North Yorkshire, a town in England * Richmond, British Columbia, a city in Canada * Richmond, California, a ...

and El Cerrito while working at her parents' small Mexican restaurant in Berkeley. Guerrero studied both Psychology and

Chicano studies Chicana/o studies, also known as Chican@ studies, originates from the Chicano Movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, and is the study of the Chicana/o and Latina/o experience. Chican@ studies draws upon a variety of fields, including history, soc ...

at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, completing a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

. She later moved to

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to study directing at

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a private art university in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for students of bo ...

Santa Clarita, California Santa Clarita (; Spanish for "Little St. Clare") is a city in northwestern Los Angeles County in the U.S. state of California. With a 2020 census population of 228,673, it is the third-largest city by population in Los Angeles County, the 17 ...

earning a

Master of Fine Arts A Master of Fine Arts (MFA or M.F.A.) is a terminal degree in fine arts, including visual arts, creative writing, graphic design, photography, filmmaking, dance, theatre, other performing arts and in some cases, theatre management or arts a ...

. Her narrative work often examines the intersection of the working class, queer, and of color.

Career

Early in her career, she co-founded Womyn Image Makers (WIM) along with Dalila Mendez, Maritza Alvarez and Claudia Mercado. As WIM, in 2005, she directed the short film ''Pura Lengua'', which debuted at the

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,6 ...

. Her second short film, ''Viernes Girl'', won the 2005

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New York International Latino Film Festival The New York International Latino Film Festival is a major Hispanic film festival located in New York City. The festival features over sixty films, shorts, and documentaries over the course of six days, along with other events focused on Latino cul ...

short film competition. Both films caught the attention of film institutions such as Sundance,

Tribeca Tribeca (), originally written as TriBeCa, is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. Its name is a syllabic abbreviation of "Triangle Below Canal Street". The "triangle" (more accurately a quadrilateral) is bounded by Canal Stre ...

, and

Film Independent The Independent Spirit Awards (abbreviated Spirit Awards and originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards), founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glass ...

. Guerrero also went on to assist director

Patricia Cardoso Patricia Cardoso is an award-winning filmmaker and anthropologist who was the first Latinx woman director to have a film included in the Library of Congress's National Film Registry and to receive a Sundance Audience Award. Her directing credit ...

on her debut feature '' Real Women Have Curves'', which won the

Audience Award An audience award is typically an award at a film festival (or some other type of cultural festival or similar competition) which is selected by the audience attending the festival, rather than by the festival jury or a group of critics. Examples ...

in 2002. In 2005 Guerrero was selected as a Sundance Institute Ford Foundation film fellow. While there, she participated in the Native Indigenous Lab with her script for ''

Mosquita y Mari ''Mosquita y Mari'' is a 2012 coming-of-age film written and directed by Aurora Guerrero and starring Fenessa Pineda and Venecia Troncoso. It premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. Plot When Yolanda Olveros meets her new neighbor Mari R ...

''. In 2012, Guerrero made her feature film debut at the Sundance Film Festival with ''Mosquita y Mari'', becoming the first Chicana filmmaker to debut a feature-length film who was also previously a Sundance Institute and Ford Foundation Fellow. ''

'' has since traveled over 100 film festivals including

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, Guadalajara,

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...

, and has garnered multiple awards including Best First Feature at

Outfest Outfest is an LGBTQ-oriented nonprofit that produces two film festivals, operates a movie streaming platform, and runs educational services for filmmakers in Los Angeles. Outfest is one of the key partners, alongside the Frameline Film Festival ...

and Best U.S. Latino Film at New York's

Cinema Tropical Cinema Tropical is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to the distribution, programming and promotion of Latin American cinema in the United States. The non-profit company was co-founded by Carlos A. Gutiérrez and Monika Wagenberg in 2 ...

while picking up Spirit Award and

GLAAD GLAAD (), an acronym of Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, is an American non-governmental media monitoring organization originally founded as a protest against defamatory coverage of gay and lesbian demographics and their portraya ...

nominations for Best First Feature Under 500k and the Piaget's Producer's Award. The film tells the coming-of-age story of two teen Chicanas in

Huntington Park, California Huntington Park is a city in the Gateway Cities district of southeastern Los Angeles County, California. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, the city had a total population of 58,114, of whom 97% are Hispanic/Latino and about ...

who form a relationship ignited by sexual attraction. Guerrero describes an attraction to speaking about “actual violence within silence,” taboo subjects that are not easily spoken about between parents and children. Guerrero also hoped that LGBT Latino audiences would see themselves validated by the film—much as Guerrero herself felt when, as an undergraduate student, she encountered the work of feminist Chicana writers Gloria E. Anzaldúa and

Cherríe Moraga Cherríe Moraga (born September 25, 1952) is a Chicana writer, feminist activist, poet, essayist, and playwright. She is part of the faculty at the University of California, Santa Barbara in the Department of English. Moraga is also a founding ...

. In an interview in 2012 at the Torino LGBTQI Film Festival, Guerrero stated that she felt connected to the story in ''

'' because she “wanted to stay true to her own coming of age experience of exploring her identity. I feel at that age you’re a little more open to life and the people around you end up impacting you because of your openness. These early years are markers of who you will become later on. That is very true of my life and I feel like my friendships, and that friendship in particular that inspired this movie, was the beginnings of my queer identity.” In 2014, Guerrero announced her next project, ''Los Valientes'', about a young undocumented Latino

gay man ''Gay'' is a term that Terminology of homosexuality, primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to Gay men, ...

living in the U.S. ''Los Valientes'', slated to be Guerrero's second feature, has been awarded two grants by SFF/KRF, a 2014 Sundance Feature Film Development Grant and a 2013 Tribeca Narrative Grant, and was selected to participate in IFP's No Borders Market in 2014. Most of Guerrero's film work has been centered around California, especially the

San Francisco Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

where she grew up. Her first work not centered in California was the episode of ''

Queen Sugar Queen or QUEEN may refer to: Monarchy * Queen regnant, a female monarch of a Kingdom ** List of queens regnant * Queen consort, the wife of a reigning king * Queen dowager, the widow of a king * Queen mother, a queen dowager who is the mother ...

'' she directed, centered in

Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...

. In 2017, Guerrero directed the

Ava DuVernay Ava Marie DuVernay (; born August 24, 1972) is an American filmmaker, television producer and former film publicist. She is a recipient of a Primetime Emmy Award, a NAACP Image Award, a BAFTA Film Award and a BAFTA TV Award, as well as a nomi ...

produced ''

'' episode "What Do I Care for Morning" which aired as episode three in season two. DuVernay chose Guerrero for the directorial position because of her work ''

''. Based on this film, DuVernay felt confident enough that Guerrero could focus on the power of intimacy, especially for ''

'', a show that focuses so much on family, betrayal and injustice. Prior to directing episode three of season two of ''

'', Guerrero had no idea what episode or what she was going to be directing specifically. Exploring the flirtation, tension, and budding romance of this episode is one of her strengths, and it was a perfect directorial fit for her. DuVernay later recommended Guerrero to

Lin-Manuel Miranda Lin-Manuel Miranda (; born January 16, 1980) is an American songwriter, actor, playwright and filmmaker. He is known for creating the Broadway musicals '' Hamilton'' (2015) and ''In the Heights'' (2005), and the soundtracks for the Disney animat ...

to direct the music video for

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's cover of "Burn" from ''

The Hamilton Mixtape ''The Hamilton Mixtape'' is a 2016 mixtape album featuring assorted songs from the 2015 Broadway musical ''Hamilton'' performed by various artists, as well as some deleted songs from the musical. It was widely well-received by critics. Backgroun ...

''.

Influences

In a blog post that she wrote on the

Sundance Institute Sundance Institute is a non-profit organization founded by Robert Redford committed to the growth of independent artists. The institute is driven by its programs that discover and support independent filmmakers, theatre artists and composers fr ...

website on April 28, 2011 Guerrero writes, "My first inspirations were writers. Women of color feminist writers like

Audre Lorde Audre Lorde (; born Audrey Geraldine Lorde; February 18, 1934 – November 17, 1992) was an American writer, womanist, radical feminist, professor, and civil rights activist. She was a self-described "black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet," wh ...

, Cherrie Moraga, Gloria Anzaldúa,

Chrystos Chrystos (; born November 7, 1946, as Christina Smith) is a Menominee writer and two-spirit activist who has published various books and poems that explore indigenous Americans's civil rights, social justice, and feminism. Chrystos is also a l ...

June Jordan June Millicent Jordan (July 9, 1936 – June 14, 2002) was an American poet, essayist, teacher, and activist. In her writing she explored issues of gender, race, immigration, and representation. Jordan was passionate about using Black English ...

, and

Angela Davis Angela Yvonne Davis (born January 26, 1944) is an American political activist, philosopher, academic, scholar, and author. She is a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A feminist and a Marxist, Davis was a longtime member o ...

. When I discovered their brave works as a freshman in college, a fierce creative seed was planted in me. It was a calling I had the moment I was stripped naked by their words." Her work showcases the experiences of

Chicanas Chicano or Chicana is a chosen identity for many Mexican Americans in the United States. The label ''Chicano'' is sometimes used interchangeably with ''Mexican American'', although the terms have different meanings. While Mexican-American ident ...

that often echo her own experiences. In an interview with ''El Tecolote'' on April 26, 2012, Guerrero stressed the importance of “opening doors to Latinos, especially women and youth, behind the camera in order to help build a community of Latina/o artists,” something she didn't have when she was a girl. She also stresses the importance of activity in politics and cultural activism.

Awards and nominations

''Viernes Girl'', HBO/New York International Latino Film Festival (NYILFF) short script competition (2005)
''Mosquita y Mari'', John Cassavetes Spirit Award Nomination, (2013) ''Mosquita y Mari'', John Cassavetes Spirit Award for Best First Screenplay, (2013)
''Mosquita y Mari'', Best First Narrative Feature, Outfest (2012)
''Mosquita y Mari'', Best Narrative Feature, Festival Las Americas, Chicago (2012)
''Mosquita y Mari'', Best Narrative Feature, Cinefestival (2012)
''Mosquita y Mari'', Best Screenplay, Santa Fe Independent Film Festival (2012)
''Mosquita y Mari'', Queer Award, Torino International LGBT Film Festival (2012)
''Mosquita y Mari'', Audience Award, Pink Film Festival Zurich (2012)
Best Director, awarded to Aurora Guerrero, Long Beach QFilm Festival (2012)
Global Can Award, awarded to Aurora Guerrero, William & Mary Film Festival (2012) Time Warner/Sundance Storytelling Fellow (2012)

Filmography

References

External links

* Aurora Guerrero Interview o
YouTube
*
2012 Aurora Guerrero interview
indiewire.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Guerrero, Aurora Living people American women film directors American women screenwriters American film directors of Mexican descent Lesbian artists LGBT film directors American LGBT screenwriters LGBT Hispanic and Latino American people LGBT people from California Screenwriters from California Film directors from San Francisco Writers from San Francisco California Institute of the Arts alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni Ford Foundation fellowships Year of birth missing (living people)