The filmmaker

Bio (long)

Filmmaker, poet, short-story writer, essayist, and photographer, he was born in Bogotá, Colombia, in 1959. He studied advertising at Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, while also dedicating himself to photo-essays and photographing works of art. During this time, he made contact with prominent Colombian and Latin American artists. In 1986, his photographic work was selected by the New Names program of Banco de la República, curated by Beatriz González. He began writing under the guidance of professor Helena Iriarte. One of his short stories, Paloma, won second prize in the First Alejo Carpentier National Short Story Contest and was published in the Cultural Magazine of the newspaper El Espectador.

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From that year on, he chose the university of wandering, traveling by ship from Buenaventura to Hiroshima. For three and a half years, he resided in Japan, China, India, Australia, and Europe, dedicating himself to marveling at the world, keeping a dream diary, and practicing and teaching yoga and meditation. He returned to his native country in 1991 to focus on commercial and editorial photography. For five years, he traveled across Colombia on commissions for environmental, terrestrial, aerial, and underwater photography, creating images that appeared in several coffee-table books, some of which were sponsored by Banco de Occidente. In 2003, he moved to Canada and settled in Montreal. In 2010, he redefined himself as an anthropologist at Concordia University while experimenting with engagé or activist photography, exhibiting projects such as Divine Nature, Canada Day 1, Grsi-Gris contre l'abus, and Sacred Flow, among others. In 2008, he was invited to the Campbell Soady Gallery to showcase his work Divine Nature, with the inauguration attended by 150 guests in naturist attire. His graduate fieldwork research, X-Out Boundaries - Private & Public - Symbolic Essay, was published in the annual publication of the Faculty of Anthropology, Stories from Montreal 5.

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The following year, after an immigration process marked by unimaginable overlapping adventures and solitude, he proudly became a Canadian citizen. In 2015, he enrolled in a master's program at the School of Image Arts in Toronto, specializing in documentary filmmaking. His graduate work, Nature Dazzles, was screened at the Toronto HotDocs theatre, awarded by the Tampa Bay TBAE, and distributed by educational platforms in Canada and the USA. In 2021, he won a post-production grant for the documentary Talking Hands, his debut film. His filmography includes nearly 40 films, including documentaries, video art, domestic ethnography, artist profiles, and a work of fiction.

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His work as a documentary filmmaker and video poetry producer is driven by the need to capture the uniqueness of his perspective through still and moving images, as well as literature. He employs an ethnographic approach that is observant, participatory, nomadic, and alert to human behavior and cultural expressions, whether candid or problematic. Through audiovisual recordings, he explores the elusive beauty of nature, tackles uncomfortable subjects, and delves into the art of self-expression. He has undertaken photographic and cinematic experiments addressing socio-political and moral issues, exploring experimental concepts of self-identity in the modern world. His work has been exhibited or distributed in New York, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Tampa Bay, Cartagena, and Bogotá.