Director, Producer, Screenplay
Mónica Taboada-Tapia
www.guerrerofilms.co
A filmmaker born in Cartagena, Mónica Taboada-Tapia has worked as a director, producer, and screenwriter. She studied anthropology and graduated with a film and television production degree from the Universidad Nacional of Colombia. Her film projects have participated in markets and labs such as TorinoFilmLab, Tribeca Film Institute Network, DocsBarcelona, DocMontevideo Pitch, The New York Times Op-Docs, Pulitzer Center, and Tribeca Film Institute International Pitch, among others. She is the founder of the production company Guerrero Films.
Alma del desierto (Soul of the Desert, 2024) is her debut feature, a documentary co-produced with Brazil that had its world premiere at the Giornate degli Autori, an independent section of the 2024 Venice Film Festival. It is one of the few Colombian documentaries selected for the Biennale, and Mónica Taboada-Tapia became the first Colombian director to compete in the event with a feature film.
The documentary received support from incentives such as the Film Development Fund (FDC) in the category of Documentary Feature Production (2018), among other participations in labs and markets. Alma del desierto follows Georgina, an elderly trans woman, as she crosses the desert of La Guajira to obtain something she has wanted for nearly half a century: a document that will confirm her identity and finally allow her to vote. In addition to directing the film, Mónica Taboada-Tapia also wrote the screenplay.
She directed the short films Fidel (2012), which was part of the Cartagena de Indias International Film Festival (FICCI) and the Bogotá Short Film Festival / Festival de Cortos de Bogotá - Bogoshorts, as well as Bandera roja (Red Flag, 2023), which had its international premiere in the competition of IDFA (Netherlands). Her film Two-spirit (2021) won the Santa Lucía Award at Bogoshorts (2021) and was nominated for the IDA Documentary Awards in Los Angeles (2022) and the Macondo Awards (2022) of the Colombian Film Academy. It is available on The New Yorker platform.
She also produced the documentary Causas elevadas (Elevated Causes, 2021), directed by Beto Rosero, and was the showrunner of the series El placer de escaparse del mundo (The Pleasure of Escaping the World, 2021). She is currently working on the films El cedro (Cedar Tree), De la Villa (From de Village), and Reina del pueblo (Queen of the Town) with the support of the Fondo para el Desarrollo Cinematográfico (FDC).