Tombuktu Films

ROSSANA DIAZ COSTA

Rossana Díaz Costa was born in 1970, in Lima, Peru. She’s a writer and film-maker. Her life is dedicated to both Literature and Cinematography.

She has a BA in Linguistics and Literature, career she studied at the Universidad Católica del Perú. While being a Literature student, she became interested in cinema and also started studying at the Faculty of Communications of the Universidad de Lima. There, she got in touch for the first time with the study of Cinematography.

In Lima, she worked as an English teacher and a Literature teaching assistant, but also as a video-maker and reporter of the weekly TV news channel for students, at the same university. She also worked as a scriptwriter and director in a production company (Guarango Cine y Video), where she participated in different projects, the most important of them being the documentary En Camino-On the Way (1996), which belongs to the series “Not the Numbers Game”, produced by TVE (Television Trust for the Environment) of England. The series consisted in five documentaries written and directed by women in Uganda, Bosnia, India, Indonesia and Peru. This documentary won a “One World” Prize of the BBC of London.

In 1997, she won a scholarship to go to Spain. There, she was a lecturer of Hispanic American Literature and took the Doctorate Courses in Hispanic Literature at the Universidad de La Coruña. She also studied Scriptwriting and Direction at the Film School of the same city. There, she wrote and directed a documentary about immigration, Travesía de Extramares (1998), broadcasted by the Spanish TV, and wrote and directed other short fiction films.

During her stay in Spain, she worked as an English teacher. She also won many literary prizes (Lituma Prize, Federico García Lorca Prize, among others), and her stories have been published in different Spanish and Peruvian anthologies. In 2005, she obtained the second place of the National Narrative Prize in Peru, with a book called Los Olvidados (no los de Buñuel, los míos) - The forgotten (not Buñuel´s, but mine), which was published by the Universidad Católica del Perú in 2006. That same year, one of her stories was selected for the exhibition “Southern Eyes. 21st Century Visual Arts and Literature”, presented by the European Parliament (Brussels).

In 2006, she also finished her Screenwriting studies at the Escuela de Cinematografía de la Comunidad de Madrid - ECAM (Film School of Madrid). While studying, she wrote many short and 45-minute films, TV serials and sitcom projects. Also, two long-feature film scripts.

Since 2008, she is living again in Lima, Peru. Since she arrived she started teaching at different universities in Lima: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas (UPC), among others. She has been teaching different courses related to Film and Literature.

In 2009, her book Los Olvidados (no los de Buñuel, los míos) was published in a second edition by Estruendomudo. One of her stories also appeared in the anthology Matadoras, nuevas narradoras peruanas (Matadoras, new Peruvian female narrators) and another story was finalist in the Copé Story Prize and was also published in an anthology.

In 2009, she founded the film production company Tombuktu Films (www.tombuktufilms.com), in order to develop and produce her first long-feature film project Viaje a Tombuctú (Trip to Timbuktu).

Viaje a Tombuctú (Trip to Timbuktu) obtained the Development Financial Aid of Ibermedia (2007) and participated in the 5th Course of Film Project Development, in Madrid, Spain, with a scholarship of the Fundación Carolina and Casa de América (2007). Also, it participated in the 2nd Course of Film Project Development, in Salvador de Bahía, Brasil, with a scholarship of Casa de América and Instituto Cervantes (2009). It was also selected to participate in the Coproduction Forum at San Sebastian Film Festival 2010 and the 15th Screenplay Development Fund at the Amiens International Film Festival 2010. In June 2010, Viaje a Tombuctú (Trip to Timbuktu) also obtained the Conacine Prize (Peruvian State Aid for Cinema). In 2011, the project received the Ibermedia Production Prize (Spanish Aid for Cinema), in coproduction with Argentina, and in 2012 the film was shot. That same year, the film received the INCAA Post Production Prize (Argentinian Aid for Cinema), in coproduction with Machaco Films.

Viaje a Tombuctú (Trip to Timbuktu) has been selected to participate in many international festivals: Festival de Cine de Lima 2013 (it won the Public Prize); Festival de Cine Latino en Punta del Este-Uruguay 2013 (it won the Best Fiction Film Prize); Festival Internacional de Cine de Pasto-Colombia 2014 (it won the Best Fiction Film Prize); it was chosen for the Official Selection of the San Diego Latino Film Festival, Chicago Latino Film Film Festival, San Francisco Latino Film Festival (all in the USA), Festival Internacional de Cine de Barranquilla-Colombia; and finally, it was chosen to represent Peru at the FILBO 2014 in Colombia (International Book Fair in Bogotá). In 2013, the film also received the Distribution and Exhibition Prize of the Ministry of Culture in Peru. With this aid the film had its theatrical release in 2014, in Peru and Argentina. The film has also been shown in Spain, England, Belgium, Singapore, Brazil, Italy, and in many universities in the United States. In 2015, it also won the Best Fiction Film Prize in the Peruvian Film Festival in Paris.

Nowadays, she is also teaching Literature, Narrative, Scriptwriting and History of Cinema at the Universidad Católica del Perú and also develops her second feature film project: UN MUNDO PARA JULIUS (A WORLD FOR JULIUS), project which will be produced by Tombuktu Films in coproduction with Machaco Films (Argentina).

diseño web : Rogelio Estrella
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