Spanish filmmaker and producer, she received her MFA in film production from University King Juan Carlos, Spain, and her degree in documentary film production from the EICTV, Cuba. Her first feature “Hotel Nueva Isla” (2014) was released in Rotterdam International Film Festival and played to critical acclaim at film festivals in New York (MoMA Documentary Fortnight), Portland, Chicago, Hong Kong, Munich, Jeonju, Melbourne, Toulouse and Moscow, among others. “Between Dog and Wolf” is her next work, supported by Tribeca TFI, Ibermedia Program and ICAA, to be released in 2019. Actually Irene is a PhD student at Carlos III University, Spain, while editing the long version of “Border Diaries”, her first short film, which was screened as part of the cycle “Imaginary Geographies” at Cervantes Institutes of NY, Belgrade, Tokyo, Amman and Sofia, among other film festivals in Uganda, Tanzania, Portugal, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina and art venues as the CCA of Glasgow. Her films and researching link the intimate portrait and the historical dimensions of her characters with the landscape as an expression of the political tension between individuals and nation.
Border Diaries is an exquisitely shot and poetic meditation on the plight of African immigrants trying to reach Spain from the enclave of Ceuta on the North African coast, the film intercuts strikingly beautiful cinematography that dwells on moments and rituals of southern Spanish culture (fisherman’s processions, fairgrounds, military parades) with grainy mobile phone ‘found’ footage of an actual group of young men preparing to attempt the sea crossing from their make-ship refugee camp. Life on one of the borders of Europe, as seen by three different points of view. The director intertwine old family images with the reality of present day Ceuta and the life in the woods of African immigrants trying to enter Europe. A story made of steel fences where each and everyone is now locked in and locked out. Poetic, atmospheric and reflective, a thoughtful essay on the lure versus the reality of promised lands
