Profile

María Teresa Rodríguez is a filmmaker, producer and Adjunct Associate Professor in the Media Arts Department of the University of the Arts. Her work has won awards in film festivals around the world and has been broadcast nationally on PBS.  In addition to her work as a producer and a director, María has facilitated community media projects with senior citizens, high school youth and Mexican migrant workers through Scribe Video Center.  She is the recipient of numerous grants and fellowships including a Leeway Transformation Award, which recognizes the work of women artists engaged in social change.  María received her BA from the University of Virginia and her MFA from Temple University.

Artist Statement:
María Teresa Rodríguez's work of the last decade has often centered on untold stories of Latinos in the Americas whose experiences reflect a larger sociopolitical reality. Her work includes Mirror Dance, which was broadcast on PBS’ Independent Lens and received a LASA Award of Merit and a CINE Golden Eagle Award, and Becoming American, part of the 4 hour series Unnatural Causes: Is Inequality Making Us Sick?, which received a 2009 duPont Columbia Award in Television News, a 2009 Council on Foundations Henry Hampton Award, and a PBS national broadcast, among others.  Currently she is working on ¿Donde Están? (wt), a documentary funded in part by the Sundance Documentary Program and ITVS which explores post-conflict El Salvador through the stories of the disappeared children of the civil war and the families that search for them.

Selected Festivals and Screenings:
Whitney Museum of American Art; Smithsonian Institution, National Portrait Gallery; Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, Havana, Cuba; Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis, Minn.; Texas Documentary Tour, Austin, Texas; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; Melbourne Latino Film Festival, Melbourne, Australia; 7th Constellation Change Screen Dance Festival, London, England; San Juan Cinemafest, San Juan, Puerto Rico; ETV, Basque Television, Spain

Selected Awards:
2009 Communication Award, TV/Radio/Film, National Academies (Unnatural Causes);2008 Congressional Black Caucus Health Braintrust / National Minority Quality Forum Excellence in Journalism Award (Unnatural Causes); Finalist, Best Television Documentary, Imagen Awards, (Mirror Dance); First Place, Television Documentary, Society of Professional Journalists, Philadelphia Chapter (Mirror Dance) First Place, Short Documentary, XVIII International Film Festival of Uruguay, (From Here to There, De Aquí a Allá); Lawrence Kasdan Award, Best Narrative Film; Ann Arbor Film Festival, (Morningtide) ; Regional Student Academy Award, Experimental Category (Morningtide) .

Selected Grants and Fellowships:
Pew Fellowship in the Arts; National Endowment for the Arts; Pennsylvania Council on the Arts; PBS Producers Academy Fellowship; Greater Philadelphia Cultural Association; Leeway Foundation.