Aldrina Valenzuela

Born in Caracas, Venezuela, in 1975, she graduated with distinction at the International Film and TV School, in San Antonio de los Baños - Cuba. She has worked as a producer, both in fiction and documentary for over ten years, and recently as a documentary filmmaker, in Venezuela and Latin America. Her experience includes field and executive production, budgeting, knowledge of the whole moviemaking process, and script analysis for projects in development. During the last 3 years she has been consulting young Venezuelan scriptwriters and directors to find the right way to communicate their ideas in order to finance them. Also, she participated as producer and director in a number of international film and industry meetings like the Sundance Independent Producers Conference in 1999, the Morelia Lab in 2007, and the Talent Campus in Buenos Aires in 2008. In 2009 she was a consultant to the CEO, and Commissioning editor/jury in the “Fundación Villa del Cine”, the government’s production company. There she participated as a member of the crew who evaluated and chose the projects to produce or co-produce. Intention: Following any stage of making a film is exciting, but to accompany the sacred journey of the birth of a story is always a privilege. Script editing has really allowed me to get next to the movie-to-be with humility, energy, affection, and patience, and I like to think about our job as the midwifes of all the stories that are about to be delivered: we’ll be loyal and help and guide them to see the light. The instinctive process of writing does not need any company other than one, which is part of its very instinctive nature: we must establish a way to engage with the true intentions of the writer, and to find and understand those is the best way to support the writer’s process. For a moment we must erase ourselves, and just be there, serving and listening to the story, this is the main challenge in this job, but it seems to be the only way to reach honest and deeper screenplays. This is maybe opposite to the statements of being a producer; yet, I feel this approach is the perfect complement for supporting our emerging and very own point of view as Latin American filmmakers.