José Luis Aparicio

Independent filmmaker, critic and curator born in Cuba in 1994.

He has directed the fiction short films Tundra (2021) and El Secadero (Dryland, 2019), as well as the medium-length documentary Sueños al pairo (Dreams adrift, 2020). His films have been selected by festivals such as Sundance, Locarno, Raindance, Miami, BAFICI, Guanajuato, Curta Cinema and NewFilmmakers LA. Tundra was awarded at Fantaspoa, New Jersey, New York City Independent, Pendance and the Seattle Latino film festivals. In 2022 he was invited to Locarno’s Open Doors program and received one of the Prince Claus Seed Awards.

He is currently developing his first feature film, El Mar / The Sea, a project selected by the Spanish Film Academy Residencies, the Cinéma en Développement platform of the Cinélatino-Rencontres de Toulouse film festival, and the Nouveau Marché of the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma. As part of the documenta fifteen in Kassel, he curated Tierra sin imágenes / Land Without Images, the largest retrospective of Cuban independent cinema to date. Since 2021 he has been the artistic director of the INSTAR Film Festival.