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Lourdes Portillo is a Mexican film director, producer, and writer.


Biography

Portillo got her first filmmaking experience at the age of twenty-one when a friend in Hollywood asked her to help out on a documentary. Her formal training began several years later. She has thus been making award-winning films about Latin American, Mexican, and Chicano/a experiences and social justice issues both as a director and screenwriter for about forty years. Since her first film in 1979, After the Earthquake/Despues del Terremoto, she has produced over 12 works that demonstrate her work as not only a director, but also an activist, artist, and journalist. While the majority of her work is in the documentary film genre, she has also created
video installation Video installation is a contemporary art form that combines video technology with installation art, making use of all aspects of the surrounding environment to affect the audience. Tracing its origins to the birth of video art in the 1970s, it has ...
s and screen writings. The political perspectives of her films have been described as "nuanced" and versed with a point of view balanced by her experience as a lesbian and Chicana woman. Her films have been widely studied and analyzed, particularly by scholars in the field of
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 ...
.


Personal life

Born in 1943 in Chihuahua, Mexico, Portillo immigrated with her parents and four siblings to Los Angeles when she was thirteen years old. Her father, being an administrator of a newspaper in Mexico and working on printing projects in the U.S, is one of the things that initiated Portillo's fond interest in stories. By the time she was in her twenties, she had gotten a job working for an educational film company in Los Angeles, exposing her to her future career in documentary filmmaking. Wanting to work in a more livelier art film community, Portillo decided to move to San Francisco in the early 1970s. She became a participating member of a collective called Cine Manifest, a Marxist collective that created documentaries and was slowly beginning to make feature-length films. She began working as Stephen Lighthill's assistant in the collective's feature, ''Over-Under, Sideways-Down'' (1972). After working with Cine Manifest for several years, she apprenticed with the National Association of Broadcast Engineers and Technicians in San Francisco, and graduated with an MFA from the
San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximatel ...
in 1985 with special emphasis on vanguard and experimental filmmaking. Afterward, she began her career as a producer and director of films. In 1976, she established her own independent film company Xochitl Productions. She has been involved in multiple film communities and panels, working to encourage more Third World filmmakers into entering the film industry. In her early time in San Francisco, she became very close to La Galería de la Raza, a community-based exhibit space that opened in 1970 and served as a Chicano and Latino art gallery in San Francisco's Mission District. She was part of the CARA Exhibit hicano Art: Resistance and Affirmation in UCLAas an advisor, and was part of the board of the Film Arts Foundation and IVF (Association of Independent Video and Film).


Career

Portillo's films generally focus on Latin America and the experience of Latin American-born immigrants in the United States. During her studies at the San Francisco Art Institute, she made her film debut ''Después del Terremoto'' in 1979 alongside codirector Nina Serrano, focusing on the experience of a Nicaraguan refugee of the
1972 Managua earthquake The 1972 Nicaragua earthquake occurred at 12:29:44 a.m. local time (06:29:44 UTC) on December 23 near Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. It had a moment magnitude of 6.3 and a maximum MSK intensity of IX (''Destructive''). The epicenter w ...
in San Francisco. It was followed by ''
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo ''The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo'' ( es, Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo) is a 1985 Argentine documentary film directed by Susana Blaustein Muñoz and Lourdes Portillo about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. It was nominated for an Academy Award ...
'', a 1986 co-production with the
Argentine Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish ( masculine) or ( feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines ...
director
Susana Blaustein Muñoz Susana Blaustein Muñoz is an Argentine film director. She directed four films since she started her career in 1980. She also produced one of those films, the documentary '' The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo'' (1985), with co-director Lourdes Porti ...
who she met during her studies at the San Francisco Art Institute. The film documents the actions of
Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo is an Argentine human rights association formed in response to the National Reorganization Process, the military dictatorship by Jorge Rafael Videla, with the goal of finding the ''desaparecidos'', initially, an ...
, a group of Argentine women who gather weekly at the
Plaza de Mayo The Plaza de Mayo (; en, May Square) is a city square and main foundational site of Buenos Aires, Argentina. It was formed in 1884 after the demolition of the Recova building, unifying the city's Plaza Mayor and Plaza de Armas, by that time kn ...
in Buenos Aires to remember their children that were murdered or "
disappeared An enforced disappearance (or forced disappearance) is the secret abduction or imprisonment of a person by a state or political organization, or by a third party with the authorization, support, or acquiescence of a state or political organiz ...
" by the military regime. A turning point in Portillo's filmmaking career, the film won twenty international awards as well as receiving an Academy Award nomination in 1987 for Best Documentary. Portillo's film audience greatly expanded beyond the U.S and played a major role in publicizing internationally the plight of the mothers and missing children. In her third film, ''La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead'' (1988), Portillo focuses on the Mexican cultural practice
Day Of The Dead The Day of the Dead ( es, Día de Muertos or ''Día de los Muertos'') is a holiday traditionally celebrated on November 1 and 2, though other days, such as October 31 or November 6, may be included depending on the locality. It is widely obser ...
and its revival and recovery by Chicanas and Chicanos in the US. According to Portillo, the film was originally supposed to be made alongside
Susana Blaustein Muñoz Susana Blaustein Muñoz is an Argentine film director. She directed four films since she started her career in 1980. She also produced one of those films, the documentary '' The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo'' (1985), with co-director Lourdes Porti ...
, and together put in an application to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to make ''La Ofrenda''. After shooting the film however, both filmmakers realized they could not continue working together and ended their filmmaking partnership. Portillo was left to finish the film. In 1992, she collaborated with the
Chicano 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 ...
comedy troupe Culture Clash to produce the experimental video ''Columbus On Trial'' for the international commemoration of Columbus' voyage to the Americas. Portillo humorously mixes political satire and experimental video techniques, putting the figure Columbus in a modern day courtroom and being charged for his atrocities against Native Americans. They collaborated again for the film ''Culture Clash: Mission Magic Mystery Tour'' in 2001. Alongside Culture Clash, she has also collaborated with the San Francisco Mime Troupe. One of her most critically acclaimed films ''
The Devil Never Sleeps ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in E ...
'' (1994), perfectly encapsulates Portillo's experimental filmmaking style as well as her interest and connection to her Mexican roots. Covering the mystery surrounding the death of her favorite uncle Oscar Ruiz Almeida, Portillo explores the countless dramas and rumors shared by her family members surrounding her uncle's life and death. Breaking away from conventional documentary styles, Portillo directly interacts with the film, questioning everything told by her family members and capturing her thought process as she uncovers more hidden secrets about her uncle and family. From scenes paired with clips of a TV screen playing Mexican telenovelas, to the recreations of family stories with toy props, ''The Devil Never Sleeps'' captures the uniqueness of Portillo's experimental filmmaking style. Covering a variety of topics such as family dynamics in Mexican culture, queerness, gender roles, and the distinction between private and public family affairs, Portillo's documentary is not just the story of her uncle Oscar's life and death, but also an analysis of power relations in Mexican society and culture. Recently in 2020, ''The Devil Never Sleeps'' was included in the
National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...
for preservation. Fast-forwarding to her film ''Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena'' (1999), Portillo weaves the story of Selena's life with the significance around fans, the body, and patriarchy. The inspiration for the film came after watching
Gregory Nava Gregory James Nava (born April 10, 1949) is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Personal life Nava was born in San Diego, of Mexican and Basque heritage. Nava graduated from St. Augustine High School in San Diego and went on t ...
's film ''
Selena Selena Quintanilla Pérez (; April 16, 1971 – March 31, 1995), known mononymously as Selena, was an American Tejano singer. Called the " Queen of Tejano music", her contributions to music and fashion made her one of the most celebrated Mex ...
'' (1997). Disappointed with the film's focus on Selena's relationship with men in her life rather than her life as a singer, Portillo decided on creating a documentary focusing on Selena's fans and sordid details of her life. She was able to gain Abraham Quintanilla's support for her documentary and gained access to Selena's music and Beta video copies of performances and footage unavailable to the general public under the condition that Portillo were to follow some of Abraham's film demands and eliminate certain parts he disliked. After abiding to most of the film edits, the following year, after viewing the final version shortly before the film's broadcast on public television's Point Of View, he demanded even more edits to which Portillo refused, agreeing to only one of his demands even after threatening to sue her for libel and even attempting to block the national broadcast. Even with the film's struggles to get interviews, media, and its small film budget (around $130,000 dollars), Portillo's film won a Golden Spire at the
San Francisco International Film Festival The San Francisco International Film Festival (abbreviated as SFIFF), organized by the San Francisco Film Society, is held each spring for two weeks, presenting around 200 films from over 50 countries. The festival highlights current trends in in ...
in 1999. Her film ''Señorita Extraviada'' (2001), was inspired after a conversation she had with filmmaker
Renee Tajima-Peña Renee Tajima-Peña (born 1958) is an American filmmaker whose work focuses on immigrant communities, race, gender and social justice. Her directing and producing credits include the documentaries ''Who Killed Vincent Chin?'', ''No Más Bebés'', ' ...
in Los Angeles in 1997. Portillo states that she showed her an article stating the discovery of about thirty women found dead under similar circumstances in the city of Juarez, Mexico. Many young women were disappearing in mysterious circumstances and there were no leads on the issue. Concerned with the lack of coverage, Portillo decided on creating a documentary dedicated to these young women disappearing in Juarez, interviewing family members and exploring the many branches of power behind the lack of coverage surrounding these cases. Since her first film in 1979, Portillo has produced and directed nearly a dozen others representing her creative filmmaking style as a visual artist. Her work covers stories across the U.S Mexico border and highlights the complexity and diversity of Latin American experiences both inside and outside the U.S. Her work as a Latina filmmaker embraces stories centering women's experiences and analyses the effects of social, economic and political systems working for and against these identities. Influenced by radical cinema, Portillo's work focuses on the combination of art and politics, expressing the uniqueness of hybrid identities like hers and the importance of denouncing injustice for Latino identities.


Awards

Portillo and her films have won numerous awards, mostly from regional film festivals. Selected awards: * ''After the Earthquake/Despues del terremoto (1979)'' :– Diploma of Honor, Cracow Shorts Film Festival, 1979, Cracow, Poland * ''
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo ''The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo'' ( es, Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo) is a 1985 Argentine documentary film directed by Susana Blaustein Muñoz and Lourdes Portillo about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. It was nominated for an Academy Award ...
'' (1986) :– Emmy Nomination, New and Documentary, 1986, the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences :– Academy Award Nomination, Best Documentary, 1986, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences :– Special Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival, 1986, Park City, UT :– Gran Prix Ex-Aquo, Certamen Internacional de Cine Documental y Corto Metrage, 1986, Bilbao, Spain :– Coral Prize, Feature Documentary, Festival Internacional de Cine Latinoamericano, 1986, Havana, Cuba :– Blue Ribbon, American Film and Video Festival, 1986 New York, NY :– Second Place for Documentary, Sydney Film Festival, 1986, Sydney, Australia :– Prix du Public and Prix du Presse, Women's Film Festival, 1986, Creteil, France :– Best Film, Global Village Documentary Film Festival, 1986, New York City :– First Prize, International Catholic Organization for Cinema and Audio-visuals, 1995, Havana, Cuba :– Among Six Best Films, International Documentary Association, 1986, Los Angeles, CA :– Caracol Prize from Union of Writers and Artists, International Film Festival, 1985, Havana Cuba :– Best of Northern California, National Education Film Festival, 1986, Oakland, CA :– Best Film, Sinking Creek Film Festival, 1986, Greeneville, TN :– Women Journalists' Association Prize, Women's International Film Festival, 1986, Creteil, Paris :– Golden Gate Award, San Francisco International Film Festival, San Francisco, CA * ''La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead'' (1988) :– Honors, International Documentary Association, 1989, Los Angeles, CA :– Best Feature Documentary, Athens Film Festival, 1989, Athens, OH :– Director's Choice Selection, Black Maria Film and Video Festival, 1989, West Orange, NJ :– Blue Ribbon, American Film and Video Festival, 1990, San Francisco, CA :– Special Jury Prize, Sinking Creek Film Festival, 1990, Greeneville, TN :– Best Exploration of Belief Prize, VISTAS, A Film Festival of Contemporary Folklife and Popular Culture, 1990, Los Angeles, CA :– Outstanding Cinematic Achievement, Best of Category, Documentary Film, National Latino Film and Video Festival, 1991, New York NY * ''Vida'' (1989) :– Cine Golden Eagle, 1990 :– Special Mention, San Antonio CineFestival, 1990, San Antonio, TX * ''
Columbus on Trial ''Columbus on Trial'' is a film directed by Lourdes Portillo in 1992. The 18-minute film, acted and co-written by the comic trio Culture Clash, acts out a simulated trial that Christopher Columbus is put in as they lived through the 500th anniver ...
'' (1992) :– Best Video, second place, Visual Artist Third Annual film and Video Festival, 1993, San Jose, CA :– Honorable Mention in Native American Studies, American Film and Video Association, Illinois :– The 1993 Whitney Museum Biennial, New York, New York *''Mirrors of the Heart'' (1993) :– Silver Hugo, Chicago Film Festival, 1994, Chicago, IL :– Silver Apple, National Educational Film and Video Festival, 1994, Berkeley, CA * ''
The Devil Never Sleeps ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in E ...
'' (1994) :– Best Five Documentaries of the Year, Independent Documentary Association, 1996, Hollywood, CA :– Golden Gate Award, San Francisco International Film Festival, 1995, San Francisco, CA :– Best Feature-Length Documentary, San Juan Cinemafest, 1995, San Juan, Puerto Rico :– Best Documentary, San Antonio CineFestival, 1995, San Antonio, TX :– Best Documentary, Mostra International de Filmes de Dones, 1995, Barcelona, Spain :– New Directors / New Films, The Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1995, New York City :– Most Promising Latino Film, The Independent Feature Project, 1994, New York City :– Inclusion in the
National Film Registry The National Film Registry (NFR) is the United States National Film Preservation Board's (NFPB) collection of films selected for preservation, each selected for its historical, cultural and aesthetic contributions since the NFPB’s inception ...
, 2020 * ''Corpus: A Home Movie for Selena'' (1999) :– Golden Spire, San Francisco International Film Festival, 1999, San Francisco, CA * Recipient of CalArts/Herb Alpert Award in the Arts, 1999 * ''Señorita Extraviada'' (2001) :– Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival :– Best Documentary at the Havana International Film Festival, the Nestor Almendros Award at the Human Rights Watch Film Festival :– The Ariel, the Mexican Academy of Film Award :– Best Documentary, Cinequest San Jose Film Festival, 2002 :– Audience Award for Best Documentary, Créteil International Women's Film Festival, 2002 :– IDA Award for Feature Documentaries, International Documentary Association, 2002 :– FIPRESCI Prize for International Competition, Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival, 2002 * Recipient of United States Artists (USA) Fellowship, 2008 * Anonymous Was A Woman Award, 2016


Filmography

*''
After the Earthquake ''After the Earthquake'' ( es, Después del Terremoto) is a dramatic short film that follows Irene, a young Nicaraguan immigrant living in California, as she faces new challenges—particularly in adjusting to the cultural, political, and economi ...
''/''Despues del Terremoto'' (1979) *''
The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo ''The Mothers of Plaza de Mayo'' ( es, Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo) is a 1985 Argentine documentary film directed by Susana Blaustein Muñoz and Lourdes Portillo about the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. It was nominated for an Academy Award ...
'' (1986) *''La Ofrenda: The Days of the Dead'' (1988) *''Vida'' (1989) *''
Columbus on Trial ''Columbus on Trial'' is a film directed by Lourdes Portillo in 1992. The 18-minute film, acted and co-written by the comic trio Culture Clash, acts out a simulated trial that Christopher Columbus is put in as they lived through the 500th anniver ...
'' (1992) *''Mirrors of the Heart'' (1993) *'' The Devil Never Sleeps/El Diablo Nunca Duerme'' (1994) *''Sometimes My Feet Go Numb'' (1995) *''This is Your Day/Hoy es tu Día'' (1995) *''13 Days'' (1997) *'' Corpus: A Home Movie About Selena'' (1999) *''Conversations With Academics About Selena'' (1999) *''Culture Clash: Mission Magic Mystery Tour'' (2001) *''Señorita Extraviada/Missing Young Woman'' (2001) *''My McQueen'' (2003) *''Al Más Allá'' (2008) *''Chime for Change: Girls of Ciudad Juárez'' (2013) *''State of Grace'' (2020)


See also

*
List of female film and television directors This is a list of female film and television directors. Their works may include live action and/or animated features, shorts, documentaries, telemovies, TV programs, or videos. A * Jennifer Abbott (Canada) * Sarah Abbott (Canada * Jen ...
* List of lesbian filmmakers *
List of LGBT-related films directed by women This is a list of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender-related films that were directed by women. LGBT-themed films directed by women – especially, but not exclusively, lesbian-themed movies – are an important and distinct subset of the ...


References


Further reading

* Vivancos Perez, Ricardo F. ''Radical Chicana Poetics''. London and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. * Vivancos Pérez, Ricardo F.
Parallax Views on Human Rights: Portillo's Experiment Al más allá
Global Studies Review 8.3 (Fall/Winter 2013). *Portillo, L. (2001). ''Lourdes portillo : The devil never sleeps and other films''. University of Texas Press.
Alive Again: Lourdes Portillo Discusses "The Devil Never Sleeps"

"The Devil Never Sleeps," Reviewed: A Mexican-American Documentarian's Rare Classic


External links


Official siteLourdes Portillo
in the Video Data Bank *
Lourdes Portillo
in th
Women Make Movies catalogLourdes Portilloretrospective
at th
Museum of Modern Art
in New York City, June 22–30.
Lourdes Portillo archive
housed at
Stanford University Libraries The Stanford University Libraries (SUL), formerly known as "Stanford University Libraries and Academic Information Resources" ("SULAIR"), is the library system of Stanford University in California. It encompasses more than 24 libraries in all. Se ...

Guide to the Papers of Lourdes Portillo
at the Online Archive of California {{DEFAULTSORT:Portillo, Lourdes 1944 births Living people American film directors American film producers American screenwriters American women film directors American women film producers American women screenwriters American lesbian artists LGBT film directors LGBT producers American LGBT screenwriters American film directors of Mexican descent Mexican emigrants to the United States San Francisco Art Institute alumni 21st-century American women artists Chicana feminism Chicano art Mexican film directors Mexican activists Mexican screenwriters Mexican film producers Mexican LGBT screenwriters