Valeria Contreras is an award-winning filmmaker from El Paso, Texas. She is a Producers Guild of America Create Fellow, Film Independent Producing Lab Fellow, Cine Qua Non Storylines Lab Participant, and El Paso Community Foundation Border Art Resident. She is an alum of the Harris-Walz 2024 Creative Team.

As a storyteller, Valeria examines identity, culture, and politics alongside the U.S.-Mexico border. Her short film, “Homesick,” was a tale of two star-crossed lovers, separated by a global pandemic and the border and screened at multiple festivals around the world. Valeria is currently in development as a writer/director on several feature films, including “Oranges,” “The Monarch,” and the “Untitled Texas Latina Project,” an anthology feature film exploring Latine identity in Texas through the lens of five award-winning Latina directors and writers. The Texas project has received support from the Austin Film Society, SFFilm, WarnerMedia, and The Gotham.

As a producer, Valeria has championed numerous short films including “Not My Name,” an acclaimed Colombian Spanish-language film that won the Focus Features Award for Social and Cultural Impact. Her short films have screened at Oscar-qualifying festivals, including Bogoshorts, the Atlanta Film Festival, and Urbanworld Film Festival. Through her independent production company, Apis Mellifera Productions, Valeria is developing a slate of international feature films in collaboration with filmmakers from the U.S., Colombia, Nigeria, and Canada.

Valeria is a graduate of the University of Chicago and Columbia University, where she received an MFA in Film & Creative Producing and was recognized with the Michael Hausman/Buffalo Mike Filmhaus Foundation Award as well as the 3Pas Studios Award. She has also served on the Young Mezcal Jury of the Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara and is an active alum of the Femme Frontera Filmmaker Showcase.

When she’s not at the movies, you can find her listening to Janis Joplin on vinyl, writing screenplays, or trying not to burn dinner.