Rodrigo Dorfman is a North Carolina-based award-winning writer, multimedia producer and filmmaker, who has worked with ITVS, POV, HBO, Salma Hayek's Ventanazul and the BBC among others. His films have been screened at some of the top international film festivals in the world (Toronto, Full Frame, Edinburgh, Telluride, Human Rights Watch). With his father he has won best screenplay award from the Writer's Guild of Great Britain for "Prisoners in Time" (1997). His short "One Night in Kernersville '' won Jury Award for best short at Full Frame (2011). His documentaries, Tommy! (2014) and Fiesta! Quiceañera 2018), have been broadcast on PBS stations nationwide on REEL SOUTH. His work has been exhibited at the Levine Museum of the New South, at the Atlanta History Center, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, the MAK in Los Angeles, SECCA in Winston Salem. For the past 20 years, Rodrigo Dorfman has been documenting the emerging Latino community in North Carolina through a series of hybrid educational/neo-realist films, Angelica's Dreams and Roberto's Dreams, and VIVA LA COOPERATIVA, a feature documentary on the history of the first Latino Credit Union. He is one of the cinematographers of the award-winning documentary "Always in Season" and Associate Producer of A Promise to the Dead (2008) winner of the Directors Guild of Canada Team Award. His documentary This Taco Truck Kills Fascists (2018) won Best Louisiana Feature Award at the New Orleans Film Festival. His feature documentary Quaranteened aired on PBS nationwide in the spring of 2022 on REEL SOUTH, and his latest feature, Bulls and Saints will be broadcast on PBS nationwide this Fall. His memoir Generation Exile will be published by Arte Publico Press in May 2023.

He is currently developing The Making of the Nuevo South, a TV Series on the immigrant Latino experience in the South, The Dream of the Bear, a series on the cross-border intersectionality of the revival of Native American Bear Dancing and The Disobedient One, a coming of age feature about cross-border bull riders and Norteños. His documentary Bulls and Saints was broadcast on PBS (September, 2023) .  His multimedia exhibit Aztecas and Cowboys premiered in May at the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina. His memoir Generation Exile was published by Arte Publico Press in 2023.

Rodrigo Dorfman is also a playwright, film critic, essayist, multimedia journalist and ethnographer and an associate member of  la Pocha Nostra.

QUALIFICATIONS SUMMARY:

 Multimedia Production: Wide-ranging experience in video documentary production from pre-production to post-production as a director, videographer editor and sound designer.

 Technical Skills: DSLRs, Final Cut Pro 7, Photoshop, Adobe Premiere, Flash, After Effects, Compressor, Soundtrack Pro.

 Other Skills: Fluent in Spanish and French, flash and WordPress web design, still photography, journalism, essay writing, graphic design, marketing and fundraising.

EDUCATION:

- French Baccalaureate in Economics (1985)

- Duke University: B.A. in Dramatic Arts (1989)

- UNC Chapel Hill: M.A. in Journalism and Mass Communication (2003)

  FILM FESTIVALS:

-   Toronto International Film Festival, Telluride, Human Rights Watch, Edinburgh Film Festival, Full Frame, SANFIC Santiago, Zagreb Dox, New Orleans Film Festival, Cucalorus, Los Angeles Latino Film Festival, Havana Film Festival of New Latin-American Cinema, Indy Grits, San Francisco Independent Film Festival

 SELECTED FILMOGRAPHY AS A DIRECTOR/PRODUCER

-2005 – Security – Exile – Identity: Three shorts for POV web series (17:00)

-2006 – Weaving Dreams: An immigrant Woman’s Collective (13:00)

-2007 – Angelica’s Dreams (82:30)

-2008 – CartWheels: Art on the Move – Multimedia web series

-2008 – Back to Deoband: The Jihad of Ebrahim Moosa (15:00)

-2009 – Generation Exile (70:00)

-2010 – !VIVA LA COOPERATIVA! (65:00)

-2010 – Roberto’s Dreams (104:00)

-2011 – Latino Community Credit Union Economic Empowerment Web Series

-2011 – One Night in Kernersville (19:40)

-2011 – Monsieur Contraste (62:30)

-2013 – Occupy the Imagination (90:00)

-2014 - Tommy! The Dreams I Keep Inside Me (30:00)

-2015 – Living Colors: the Durham Civil Rights History Mural Project (35:00)

-2016 – And the Children Will Burn (20:00)

-2017 – Collective Sun/Reshape the Mourning (20:00)

-2018 – This Taco Truck Kills Fascists (61:00)

-2019 – FIESTA! Quinceañera (54:00)

-2021 – Quaranteened (54:00)

- 2023 - Bulls and Saints (52:00)

 
AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS

-  Best Screenplay Award – Writer’s Guild of Great Britain (1997)

- Roy H. Park Fellowship – UNC School of Journalism (2001-2003)

- Dora Maxwell Award for Social Responsibility – for Angelica’s Dreams (2008)

- LASA (Latin America Studies Association) Merit Award in Film for Generation Exile (2009)

- Full Frame Best Short Jury Award for One Night in Kernersville (2011)

- Best Cinematography Award, Charlotte Film Festival for One Night in Kernersville (2012)

- Special Jury Mention SANFIC 9 – Santiago International Film Festival (2013)

for Occupy the Imagination (2013)

- MUSE Award in Media and Technology from the AMA for his work on Nuevolution! Exhibit at the Levine Museum of the New South. (2016)

- Best Louisiana Feature Award at the New Orleans Film Festival for This Taco Truck Kills Fascists (2018)

- North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship (2018)

- Diamante Award in Arts in Culture (2018)

-Sara Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award (2020)

- NEH/ITVS Documentary Development Fellowship (2022)

- IDA Fellowship (2022)

-.W. Greaves PBS/Firelight Media Fund Award (2022)