To the Mapuche people of the Andes, “ayelén” means the moment when two people share a smile. Born in Toronto, Canada to Chilean political refugees, I am nomadic by nature. Movement is my first language and through it I have come to find my way and my self in this world. When I was 11-years-old, I went to Havana, Cuba on my own to study dance and by 15, I began a career working with international artists such as Louis Falco, Ballet Jorgen, Gabrielle Roth, Corpus and Cirque du Soleil. In 2001, I moved to New York City and began making my own dance theater work, best described as multi-dimensional cinematic experiences, which has toured and been broadcasted across 4 continents. In 2005, my obsession with the moving image led me to film, and I wrote and directed my first short, Falling. Since then, I’ve produced the feature-length documentary A GRAIN OF SAND, which fought for and saved Brendon Grimshaw’s Moyenne Island, and wrote, directed and produced, alongside Joseph Johnson Camí, the “visually arresting” short film BECOMING. My projects have traveled to 22 international film festivals and I recently was awarded the Best Emerging Canadian Filmmaker Award (honourable mention) at the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival and Best Experimental Film at the Miami Short Film Festival for BECOMING. I am driven to create work that probes the edges of experience and believe that film has the capacity to transform, educate and inspire the infinite possibilities of the human landscape.
