Bolivian film director
Violeta Ayala
|
---|
Violeta Ayala.
|
Born
| Violeta Michelle Ayala Grageda
(
1978-02-16
)
16 February 1978
(age 46)
|
---|
Occupation(s)
| Film director, producer, writer, artist
|
---|
Spouse
|
|
---|
Children
| 1
|
---|
Violeta Ayala
(born
Violeta Michelle Ayala Grageda
; 16 February 1978) is a Bolivian-Australian
Quechua
[1]
filmmaker, artist
[2]
and technologist.
[3]
Her credits include
Prison X ? The Devil & The Sun
(2021)
[4]
[5]
and the documentaries
La Lucha
(2023),
[6]
Cocaine Prison
(2017),
[7]
The Fight
(2017),
[8]
The Bolivian Case
(2015),
[9]
and
Stolen
(2009).
[10]
Early life and education
[
edit
]
Ayala was born in
Cochabamba
,
Bolivia
in 1978, the daughter of Fanny Grageda and Efrain Ayala. Ayala's maternal grandfather was the political
Quechua
leader Vitaliano Grageda,
[11]
[12]
He was one of the founders and a former Secretary General of the Confederation of Peasant Workers of Bolivia.
[13]
Vitaliano Grageda was an active member of
The Communist Party of Bolivia
.
Her mother was a biochemist and had a pharmacy, her father immigrated to
Sydney
,
Australia
when Ayala was a child.
[14]
She has two half-brothers from her mother's subsequent relationship with doctor
Roly Elias
. She grew up in the south part of
Cochabamba
, one of the city's poorest areas.
[15]
Following her mother's death in 1995, Ayala immigrated to Australia.
Ayala is a graduate of
Charles Sturt University
where she majored in Broadcast Journalism.
Film career
[
edit
]
In 2006 Ayala began her collaboration with
Dan Fallshaw
on
Between the Oil and the Deep Blue Sea
, a documentary set in
Mauritania
, about corruption in the oil industry, that follows the investigations of mathematician Yahyia Ould Hamidoune against
Woodside Petroleum
. On the same subject Ayala co-wrote
Slick Operator
[16]
an article published in the front page of
The Sydney Morning Herald
.
Ayala's feature directorial debut, the highly controversial documentary
Stolen
(2009),
[17]
premiered internationally at the
Toronto International Film Festival
in September 2009.
[18]
In 2015 Ayala made
The Bolivian Case
, a feature about a high profile case concerning three Norwegian teenage girls caught with 22 kg of cocaine in an airport in Bolivia. The film was shot in
Cochabamba
and
Oslo
, premiered in the Special Presentation Program
[19]
at Toronto's
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival
in May 2015,
[20]
has won an audience award at the Sydney Film Festival
[21]
and was shortlisted for
Platino Awards
[22]
and Premios Fenix.
[23]
Ayala's short film
The Fight
(2017) focused on a protest by a group of
people with disabilities
that march across the
Andes
in
wheelchairs
and on foot for 35 days to the seat of the government in
La Paz
, asking to speak to President
Evo Morales
about a disability pension and were repressed by the police.
[24]
[25]
[26]
The film was released worldwide by
The Guardian
in May 2017
[27]
and has won a
Walkley Award
,
[28]
the
Deutsche Welle
Doc Dispatch Award at the
Sheffield Doc/Fest
,
[29]
as well as a nomination for an IDA Documentary Award
[30]
and was a finalist for the
Rory Peck
Sony Impact Award.
[31]
Ayala is an alumnus of the
Film Independent
Documentary Lab,
[32]
the
Berlinale Talent Campus
,
HotDocs Forum
,
Britdoc Good Pitch
,
IFP
[33]
and a
Sundance
[34]
and
Tribeca Film Institute
fellow.
[35]
Ayala's documentary
Cocaine Prison
was filmed inside San Sebastian prison in
Cochabamba
, by the inmates themselves,
[36]
giving a unique perspective on the foot soldiers of the drug trade.
[37]
[38]
[39]
Cocaine Prison
premiered at the
Toronto International Film Festival
in September 2017
[40]
and has won the
audience award
at the Rencontres Cinemas d'Amerique Latine de Toulouse.
[41]
In 2018, Ayala received a
Jaime Escalante
Medal in a ceremony organized by the
Embassy of Bolivia in Washington, D.C.
[42]
In 2020, Ayala was invited to join the
Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
.
[43]
In 2021, Ayala's
Prison X
a virtual reality animated experience premiered at the
Sundance Film Festival
.
[44]
[45]
[46]
[47]
In 2023,
La Lucha
, premiered at the
Blackstar Film Festival
[48]
and
SXSW Sydney
.
[49]
The documentary follows
La Caravana
, a significant disability rights protest in Bolivia, and its role in establishing a monthly pension for people with disabilities.
[50]
Art projects
[
edit
]
Ayala created
Las Awichas
(grandmothers in
Aymara
), a series of digital portraits with
AI
in honour of her female ancestors. The exhibition opened on 9/21/2022 at the
Martadero
[51]
[52]
[53]
In July 2023, it was announced that Violeta Ayala's project
Las Awichas
was selected for the new GLOW3 exhibition in London.
[54]
Las Awichas opened as a new commission at
The Strand
and
KCL
Bush House Arcade from March to April 2024, including the series of digital portraits, Augmented Reality experiences, 3D printed animals, and hand-woven art
[55]
[56]
[57]
Personal life
[
edit
]
Ayala has lived in Australia and the United States and has dual Bolivian-Australian nationality.
She is married to filmmaker
Dan Fallshaw
, with whom she has a child, born in June 2016.
[58]
Controversy
[
edit
]
In 2020, during the COVID-19 lockdown in Sydney, Ayala publicly supported the
rent strike
movement. Ayala's statement "People are losing their lives and livelihoods, we can’t see our loved ones, our five-year-old doesn’t go to school and the real estate agent says it’s business as usual?"
[59]
In 2022, Ayala criticized the Sundance Festival for hosting the movie
Jihad Rehab
, which interviewed former Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Ayala wrote on twitter that "an entirely white team" was "behind a film about Yemeni and South Arabian men." However, the film had a Yemeni-American executive producer and a Saudi co-producer.
[60]
Filmography
[
edit
]
- Proyecto Vila-Vila
(2005, Documentary)
- Between The Oil and The Deep Blue Sea
(2005, Documentary)
- Stolen
(2009, Documentary)
- The Bolivian Case
(2015, Documentary)
- The Fight
(2017, Short Documentary)
- Cocaine Prison
(2017, Documentary)
- Prison X
(2021, VR Animation)
- La Lucha
(2023, Documentary)
Awards
[
edit
]
Year
|
Award
|
Category
|
Work
|
Result
|
2018
|
Toulouse Latin America Film Festival
(France)
|
Audience Award
|
Cocaine Prison
|
Winner
|
Articulo 31 Film Festival (Spain)
|
Desalambre Award
|
The Fight
|
Winner
|
Tempo Documentary Festival (Sweden)
|
Stefan Jarl International Documentary Award
|
Cocaine Prison
|
Nominated
|
2017
|
Ida Awards (United States)
|
Best Short
|
The Fight
|
Nominated
|
Walkley Award (Australia)
|
Best Cinematography
|
The Fight
|
Winner
|
Rory Peck Awards (United Kingdom)
|
Sony Impact Award
|
The Fight
|
Finalist
|
Camden International Film Festival (United States)
|
Best Documentary Feature
|
Cocaine Prison
|
Nominated
|
Festival Internacional De Cine De Oruro Diablo De Oro
|
Best Documentary
|
The Fight
|
Winner
|
Festival Internacional De Cine De Oruro Diablo De Oro (Bolivia)
|
Best Documentary
|
The Bolivian Case
|
Nominated
|
Sheffield Doc/Fest (United Kingdom)
|
Doc Dispatch Award
|
The Fight
|
Winner
|
Festival Internacional De Cine De Los Derechos Humanos De Bolivia ? El Septimo Ojo Es Tuyo (Bolivia)
|
Best Documentary
|
The Fight
|
Winner
|
2016
|
Ibermedia (Spain)
|
Distribution Award
|
The Bolivian Case
|
Winner
|
Premios Platino (Uruguay)
|
Best Documentary
|
The Bolivian Case
|
Shortlisted
|
Premios Fenix (Mexico)
|
Best Documentary
|
The Bolivian Case
|
Shortlisted
|
2015
|
Sydney Film Festival (Australia)
|
Audience Award
|
The Bolivian Case
|
3rd Runner-up
|
2010
|
Pan African Film Festival in Los Angeles (United States)
|
Best Documentary
|
Stolen
|
Winner
|
Art of the Document Film Festival in Warsaw (Poland)
|
Best Documentary
|
Stolen
|
Winner
|
Anchorage International Film Festival (United States)
|
Golden Oosikar Best Documentary
|
Stolen
|
Winner
|
African Film Festival (Nigeria)
|
Best Documentary
|
Stolen
|
Winner
|
Amnesty International Film Festival (Canada)
|
Audience Award
|
Stolen
|
Winner
|
Festival Internacional De Cine De Cuenca (Ecuador)
|
Best Film
|
Stolen
|
Winner
|
Rincon International Film Festival (Puerto Rico)
|
Best International Feature
|
Stolen
|
Winner
|
Rivers Edge International Film Festival (United States)
|
Best Film
|
Stolen
|
Winner
|
Documentary Edge Film Festival (New Zealand)
|
Best Documentary
|
Stolen
|
Special Jury Mention
|
Documentary Edge Film Festival (New Zealand)
|
Best Editing
|
Stolen
|
Winner
|
Xv International Tv Festival Bar (Montenegro)
|
Silver Olive
|
Stolen
|
Winner
|
Ojai Film Festival (United States)
|
Best Documentary
|
Stolen
|
Special Jury Mention
|
One World Human Rights Film Festival (Bratislava)
|
Audience Award
|
Stolen
|
Winner
|
It's All True Film Festival (Brazil)
|
Best International Documentary
|
Stolen
|
Nominated
|
2009
|
Sydney Film Festival
|
Best Documentary
|
Stolen
|
Nominated
|
References
[
edit
]
- ^
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.
Brown Girls Doc Mafia
. Retrieved
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2021
.
- ^
London, King's College.
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.
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.
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Spangler, Todd (15 December 2020).
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.
- ^
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.
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.
- ^
Ayala, Violeta (16 September 2017),
Cocaine Prison
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, retrieved
22 May
2018
- ^
Ayala, Violeta; Fallshaw, Dan,
The Fight
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22 May
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- ^
Ayala, Violeta (29 April 2015),
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- ^
Ayala, Violeta; Fallshaw, Dan,
Stolen
, IMDb
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[
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- ^
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- ^
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- ^
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- ^
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"
.
Remezcla
. Remezcla
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17 October
2017
.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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2010
.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
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- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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2018
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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2018
.
- ^
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(in Spanish)
, retrieved
16 May
2018
- ^
"The 10 Most Politically Explosive Docs of the Year"
.
No Film School
. 27 December 2017
. Retrieved
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.
- ^
Ayala, Violeta; Fallshaw, Dan; Phillips, Charlie; Poulton, Lindsay.
"Fighting for a pension: disability rights protesters in Bolivia face police barricades ? video"
.
the Guardian
. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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, retrieved
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- ^
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"Fighting for a pension: disability rights protesters in Bolivia face police barricades ? video"
.
the Guardian
. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
the Guardian
. Retrieved
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2018
.
- ^
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'City of Ghosts' wins top prize at Sheffield Doc/Fest 2017"
.
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2018
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- ^
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.
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2018
.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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2018
.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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"
"I'm Tired of this Appropriation of Stories by Filmmakers from the West:": Violeta Ayala and Dan Fallshaw on Cocaine Prison | Filmmaker Magazine"
.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
edn.network
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. IndieWire
. Retrieved
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.
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"
'Everything in this conflict is about control': Violeta Ayala Talks 'Cocaine Prison' ? Point of View Magazine"
.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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"
.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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'Cocaine Prison' Aims to Humanize the Drug Trade by Giving Inmates Video Cameras"
.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
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.
- ^
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
- ^
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.
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- ^
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.
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.
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.
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. Retrieved
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.
External links
[
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]