FERNANDO RIAÑO
Fernando Riaño Larotta was honored recently for his outstanding, coherent exploration of environmental and educational topics at the 2013 Festiver with a retrospective of his work that included selections from among more than 120 titles honoring his research leading to innovations in the field of applications and edumatics.
In the mid-80s, Riaño was part of the Yuruparí series, which became a platform for directors focusing on culture and explorations of Colombia’s biodiversity. His audiovisual work was featured in documentary series such as Expediciones Submarinas, Expediciones Ecológicas and the video Colombia Viva. Riaño also took part in the production and photography of Francisco Bottia’s film, La boda del acordeonista.
Outstanding among his films are Exploradores y Científicos: Detrás de cámaras (1997), which dealt with the strategies used to record animal life; the documentary Exploradores y científicos: Guajira, el desierto y su gente (2001), recording the lives and environmental solutions of those whose inhabit this peninsula; Ecologistas en acción: Afrocolombianos y medio ambiente (2005), telling the story of how Afro-descendant communities in Colombia organized to improve their environment and preserve their culture; and the Expediciones por Colombia series (2006), which explored biodiversity through specific cases such as the condor and the páramo highlands, life on the coral reefs, and mangrove inhabitants.
Fernando Riaño’s numerous national and international awards include the Simón Bolívar Journalism Award, the Colciencias-CPB Award for Best Scientific/Cultural Television Production, 2nd prize at the Yuxi Environmental Film Festival in China, for the National Geographic Expediciones Ecológicas series, which also earned him Best Science and Technology Production at the Cartagena International Film Festival (FICCI). The Colciencias-CPB prize led to a scholarship to study filming of wildlife and ecology from the BBC’s Natural History Unit in the UK.
Fernando Riaño is CEO of Tinnit Producciones, producers of Los Pepa: Una Familia Genial, an animated children’s series awarded 3rd Prize at the Ibero-American Educational Television Exhibition in Mexico for the episode titled “Puddle Life”. The same series earned him the 2009 INNOVA Award for technological innovation for the animation’s production process, and in 2010, once again in Cartagena, Best Children’s Program for the episode titled “An Underwater Treasure".
Riaño is the current leader of Menos Papel Editorial Digital, which uses new technologies to develop electronic publications and applications based on his documentary archives. The company is scheduled to launch the Ecolombia Interactiva series of five e-books on Colombia’s eco-regions. The first e-book in this series won first prize at the Ministry of Technologies, Information and Communications (MinTIC) “Crea Digital” event and will be available for iPads under the title Amazonia: Refugio de Biodiversidad.