Lorena R. Valencia at the 2024 NY EMMY Awards
Lorena R. Valencia is an Emmy-winning, New York-based Mexican writer-director, producer, and the founder of Lakhesis Films, a production company dedicated to crafting narratives that represent and empower BIPOC communities. She holds an MFA in Film from the City College of New York and a BFA in Design and Visual Communication from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
Her MFA thesis film Cuanacaquilitl (Dandelion, 2022) received the Best Short Film Award at the 16 Days 16 Films Film Festival, an Honorable Mention at the Highland Park Independent Film Festival, and the National Board of Review Student Award. Cuanacaquilitl is an Official Selection in several international film festivals, including the Morelia International Film Festival, the Atlanta Film Festival, the New York Latino Film Festival, the NewFilmmakers Los Angeles Film Festival and the Hola Mexico Film Festivall.
Lorena's work has been featured in Forbes, USA Today, Fox5 News, CUNY TV, and BRIC TV, among others. She is a member of the NY NATAS, New York Women in Film and TV (NYWIFT) , NALIP and Brown Girls Doc Mafia. In 2022, she was a grantee of the Emerging Content Creators Workshop at the NALIP Media Summit, and in 2024, she was selected to be part of the Tomorrow’s Filmmakers Today fellowship program.
Passionate about narrative and documentary storytelling, Lorena focuses on issues such as reproductive rights, identity, and power dynamics. She is currently directing the documentary short "Meyolotl", project selected in the UFO Work in Progress program at the 2025 Big Sky Documetary Film Festival, and developing her debut feature film "Mayahuel," which was selected for the 2024 Cine Qua Non Lab's Storylines workshop.