Oscar-Nominated Documentary Filmmaker Lourdes Portillo, Subject Of Academy Museum Retrospective, Says She’s Working On Her “Last Project”
21.05.2023 - 17:03
/ deadline.com
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures wraps up its 10-day major retrospective of filmmaker Lourdes Portillo’s work later today, with a screening of her 2001 documentary Missing Young Woman (Señorita Extraviada).
For over four decades, the Mexican-born, Chicana-identified Portillo has crafted nuanced film and video works that center the emotions and circumstances of diverse Latinx experiences. Oscar-nominated for her documentary feature Las Madres – The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, “Portillo’s works defy categorization, slipping easily between docu-fiction, experimental video, and the melodrama of telenovelas,” as described by the Academy Museum’s interim director, film program, K.J. Relth-Miller. One of the few Chicana/o filmmakers of the 1970s still working today, Portillo, 79, has evolved her craft and expanded her interests to reinvent the form and ethos of activist filmmaking with her exceedingly independent approach to production and storytelling.
Portillo’s retrospective is part of the Academy Museum’s Limited Series and Spotlights and is the first screening series of her works by the Museum. Portillo’s films also feature as vignettes in the Academy Museum’s Significant Movies and Moviemakers gallery, part of the institution’s Stories of Cinema exhibition.
In an interview with Deadline, Portillo speaks about her journey as a filmmaker, her purpose, passions, and her current project, which she says will be her last.
DEADLINE: What does it mean for you to have a retrospective of your films at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures?
Lourdes Portillo: Well, obviously it is a great honor, especially when they’ve [The Academy] just opened their museum. That is so significant for all the filmmakers that are