Latin-Canadian Short Films

Isabella Dagnino received their Bachelor in Fine Arts from the University of the Fraser Valley and is currently a Master in Fine Arts candidate at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. Their art practice is rooted primarily in analog medium and large format photography. As someone with Latinx, Indigenous, and settler ancestry, much of their work examines the experiences shaped by their cultural background and their relationship to place and community.

Arlen Aguayo Stewart is based in Toronto and Montreal, speaks five languages, and has an eclectic background in film, theatre, business, and dance. Her starring role in ROADS IN FEBRUARY won her a VFCC Best Actress Award, the film also won Best First Feature at TIFF and TIFF TOP TEN in 2019. Her directing debut, DATE NIGHT, co-created with the incredible Margarita Valderrama has won the TSIFF short film challenge, and an award of commendation at Canada Shorts, as well as being in their official selection along with the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival, New York Latino Film Festival, and the Breakthrough Film Festival 2021. Arlen is currently in post-production for a short film called BDE by Jasmin Medew, and a music video by Juno-nominated artist Storry.

Natalia Urquiza García is currently studying film at Ryerson University. She grew up in a film family and has been on sets for historical features, documentary series, comedy shorts, and drama series. She is a fluent Spanish and English speaker and most recently worked as an AD and translator on the Vancouver and Mexico-shot project: Mother’s Love.  She also writes, produces, and directs her own short films.

Dora Prieto is an emerging writer and cat mami currently completing her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia. Her work appears in publications including Acentos Review, Capilano Review, and Catapult. Her poem “the withholding map” won the 2022 Room Magazine Poetry Contest, and her poems “Notes on the Non-Place” were a finalist for the 2023 RBC Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers. Raised between rural Nova Scotia and southern Chiapas, Dora now divides her time between central Mexico and the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Sḵwxwú7mesh, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples (Vancouver).

Dani Rodríguez Chevalier (she/ella) is passionate about analogue & lo-fi practices, poetry & hybrid forms, art making in community and independent radio. She is a co-facilitator + co-creator of writing and experimental film programs for youth: el mash up (w/ Dora Prieto), and filmfood (w/ Michelle Martin), for which they have collaborated with Echo Park Film Centre North and The Cultch Historic Theatre. Her film and photography work has appeared in Discorder Magazine, AHVA Gallery, Framer Framed, Small File Media Festival, UNIT/PITT and as wallpapers on friends’ phones. Also known as DJ D-Rod, she is the co-host (w/ DJ Bruja) of the CiTR 101.9 FM show: Vivaporú, the Ointment for the Soul. She is a pre-screener at the Vancouver Short Film Festival and programmer of the Shorts in Competition at VLAFF. She currently lives with her two dachshunds and one of her 4 siblings in the unceded territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ílwətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) nations. 

Pablo García García studies media art at Emily Carr University of Art + Design. The focus of much of his filmmaking is in using video feedback and other experimental techniques applied to loose narrative structures.

Siam Obregón is a Mexican independent filmmaker based in Montreal, Quebec. She completed her BFA with a Specialization in Film Production at Concordia University. Her work focuses on observation, intimacy, and themes of cultural identity. Her latest works have been featured in multiple Canadian festivals including Hot Docs, Festival International du Film sur l’Art (FIFA), and REGARD, as well as international festivals in the US, Germany, Portugal, Scotland, Austria, and Taiwan.

Kyana Lyne is a contemporary dancer and choreographer working in the performing arts and film. Based in Montreal, her practice explores the somatic, ancestral and poetic relationship to one’s identity. Since 2020, her choreographic films have been screened in various festivals such as Hot Docs, Rhode Island Film Festival, REGARD and FIFA. Alongside her creative practice, she is also a performer for the Margie Gillis’ Dance Foundation: The Legacy Project since fall 2021. Kyana is a graduate of Ryerson University’s dance program where she completed her studies in 2018.

Ana Tonso is a photographer and cinematographer born to a family of political and human rights activism and raised in Buenos Aires in the 90s amid an extreme social and economical crisis that granted her awareness and the opportunity to experience the diversity of realities around her, forming her vision and interests. She is passionate about documentary photography, film, and the immense possibilities of speaking our truths through art. Her short film, The Rosetti Street Massacre screened at VLAFF in 2017. Found-footage, analogue, and experimental works always catch her attention as she believes some truths are rather felt than seen. She is currently part of the Shorts in Competition programming team and the Youth Jury coordinator at the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival.