Lorena R. Valencia is a Mexican award-winning filmmaker based in New York City. She holds a BFA in Design and Visual Communication from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and an MFA in Film from the City College of New York (CUNY).
She is a recipient of the 2021 Bert Saperstein Communication Award and the 2020 and 2021 Dr. David Milch Foundation Award for her short films “Black Lives Matter” and “Preserving Nature”. Lorena is a nominee to the 2021 BAFTA-NY Jeff Hunter Charitable Trust award and recently she won the 2022 National Board of Review Student Award for her short film Cuanacaquilitl (Dandelion, 2022), which is an Official Selection at the 2022 Morelia Film Festival (FICM).
Passionate about both narrative and documentary films, Lorena is particularly interested in telling stories about the challenges that women face in their pursuit of equity and freedom.