ANNA MARGARITA ALBELO
“By the age of 12, I had a clear vision of my future and told my mom I was going to be President of the United States,” Anna Margarita Albelo says. “And she believed me!” As a student at Florida State University, Albelo originally majored in political science but, after realizing “that politics was about making decisions that favored some people and not others,” she recalls, she switched her major to film and television because she “already knew that film had the power to change minds and hearts.” Albelo eventually moved to Paris and joined the 1990s DIY movement, “creating films on issues that were important to me and didn’t exist elsewhere, all without needing funding or permission,” she says. Now, the Cuban American is a writer, director and 2020 Spirit Award-nominated producer, as well as a journalist, performer, and LGBTQ+ events organizer in both the U.S. and France. Her award-winning feature film, Who’s Afraid of Vagina Wolf?, had a worldwide release, and her documentaries focusing on lesbian culture have aired on the French television network Canal Plus. Albelo has collaborated on projects with Guinevere Turner, Peaches, Sarah Schulman, Jamie Babbit, and Cheryl Dunye. Even now, though, the setbacks are real. “I’m astonished at how hard it still is to create work that centers women, let alone queer women, in film and television,” says Albelo, who is more determined than ever to continue. She’d like to eventually alternate between making her own projects and producing for others. “My passion for storytelling and documenting lesbian and Latina experiences grows and I continue to search for and find collaborators who are equally as committed to getting these stories made.”
What Do You Think?