Spanish-Venezuelan Elena Duque is a filmmaker, programmer, critic, and professor. As a filmmaker, her work moves between animation and collage, incorporating analog formats and working methods to explore themes such as identity and belonging through visual exercises centered around places, objects, and textures.

To this date, he has made several experimental and animated pieces, which have been seen at festivals such as the Berlinale, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Mar del Plata, Punto de Vista in Pamplona, ​​​​London Animation Film Festival, Les Inattendus (Lyon), Documenta Madrid, Experiments in Cinema (Albuquerque, USA), Festival des Cinémas Différents in Paris, ExFF in Frankfurt, Animasivo (Mexico), Cinespaña Toulouse and L’Alternativa, among others, as well as in institutions such as Kino Arsenal (Berlin) and the CCCB (Barcelona). Several monographic sessions have been dedicated to his work at venues such as the Valdivia Film Festival (Chile), Echo Park Film Center in Los Angeles, USA, Doc’s Kingdom (Portugal), MUTA (Peru) and the Filmoteca de Catalunya, among others. It received a Special Mention at the 2020 Gijón Film Festival and the Best National Film Award at CaracasDoc 2021. Her work is featured in the catalogs of the Collectif Jeune Cinéma (Paris), Hamaca, and the Xcèntric Archive at the CCCB in Barcelona. She was a Visual Arts resident at the Matadero Center for Artist Residencies in 2023. She also develops commissioned pieces such as festival headers and music videos. She is also a programmer and head of the publications department at (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico in A Coruña, has been an associate programmer at the Seville European Film Festival, is a professor at the Camilo José Cela University in Madrid, and teaches workshops at various institutions and master’s programs. She is the editor of the books Val del Omar. Beyond the Earth’s Orbit (published by Bafici) and 8 Super 8 (published by (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico) and the author of The Secret Passages. Notes on Experimental Animation (CCCB’s Breus collection).

Image credit: FIC Valdivia