Pro
Monica Wise Robles
Biography
I’m a freelance Colombian American documentary filmmaker and video journalist focusing on women, migration and human rights. Since 2017, I’ve been covering these topics from Mexico and Centroamérica. As a daughter of the immigrant diaspora, I find my work focusing on identity, justice and intersections between cultures and movements. I seek to tell cinematic, intimate stories of resistance that span borders while highlighting feminist, LGBTI, and indigenous narratives. I believe these underreported narratives have the strength to change the conciencia and future of a region which has shaped my own understanding of (in)justice and humanity.
I work in TV, News, and Documentary film production in a variety of roles and am available as a camerawoman, producer, or director. My work has been featured in the Guardian, the BBC, the Intercept, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, AJ+, PBS, Guatemala’s Nómada, Mexico’s Animal Político, History Now, and NBC Latino, among others. My clients have included: UNESCO, The Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, Soil Haiti, the Whitney Museum, and Spotify.
In 2016, I worked as a producer and cinematographer on "The New Deciders," a PBS documentary special with the award-winning journalist Maria Hinojosa. I also produced and edited Guatemalan courtroom testimonies with Pamela Yates/Skylight Pictures where Mayan genocide victims demanded justice for their past, and helped to produce the feature documentary “500 Years,” chronicling indigenous resistance in Guatemala, which premiered at Sundance 2017.
I’m a graduate of Sarah Lawrence College and have produced work from Haiti, Cuba, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Colombia and Mexico. I was selected for the International Women's Media Foundation Adelante cross-border reporting fellowship in Central America in 2017, the IWMF Adelante continued reporting grant in 2018, as well as UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program workshop for independent filmmakers. I was also part of the @TakeLeadWomen’s 50 Women Can Change the World in Media & Entertainment initiative.
Lupita, my first short documentary film about a tsostil Maya activist and massacre survivor, is an Ambulante, Sheffield Doc/Fest and FICG Guadalajara selection. Lupita was commissioned by the Guardian Documentaries (will launch online late summer/fall 2020), and supported by Sundance Institute, The Ford Foundation, Swift Foundation, and the Women in Film Finishing Fund. www.lupitafilm.com
I am currently co-directing Niñas, another documentary exposing state human rights abuses, this time in Guatemala, through the eyes of several female survivors of a fire in a state-run youth shelter. We are looking for a consulting producer or EP to help raise more funds and guide post-production and the final round of production.
I am also compiling a list of female photographers, videographers/camerawomen, and producers based in Mexico and Latin America to share with international editors and clients. Please add your info! More info here: http://monicawiserobles.com/