Laura Amelia Guzmán
Directing
Biography
Laura Amelia Guzmán is a Dominican film director, writer and producer based in Santo Domingo. Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas founded Aurora Dominicana, an independent film production company.
Known For

Ramin flees from persecution in Iran and ends up living in the limbo of exile, far from everything he knows, in the tropical port town of Veracruz, Mexico. There his nostalgia and melancholy are confronted with new friendships, while he starts to rediscover his own desires.
Fireflies

No description available.
Desconectados

Two young indigenous brothers from the La Sierra Tarahumara region of northwest Mexico return home from Benito Juarez elementary boarding school, only to find their fates pulling them in opposite directions in director Laura Amelia Guzmán's dramatic meditation on the value of culture and the cost of progress.
Cochochi

Miriana “Miwi" awakens at midnight to find out her sister Juliana had an accident. We don't have more information, just the vertiginous impulse of Miwi to take some food, money, a cell phone and start the car in order to accompany her sister on a trip where she will find some clues about what happened. We view the history from Miwi's point of view while we found out the events that occurred sharing with her the pain and bewilderment.
Heights

Every afternoon Noelí, a young Dominican woman, hangs out on the beach at Las Terrenas. With her boyfriend, Yeremi, they look for ways to make a living at the expense of one of the hundreds of tourists there. However Noelí also has a steady client, Anne, a much older French woman, who, like many other Europeans, has found an idyllic refuge on the island to spend her last years. For Noelí, the relationship is one of convenience, but the feelings become more intense as they plan to leave together for Paris.
Sand Dollars

Remembers an artist in the form of a somnambulistic fantasy: A filmmaker faces increasing challenges as she tries, decades later, to complete Dominican filmmaker Jean-Louis Jorge’s unfinished work.
Holy Beasts

After fifteen years in an American jail, a man returns to the Dominican Republic. As he faces family problems, he turns to illegal street fighting and is discovered by an Italian ex-boxer.
Sambá

Set in an upper-class neighbourhood of the Dominican Republic, La Hembrita is an unsettling portrait of a middle-aged woman, Dominique, and her relations with family, servants and entourage.
Babygirl
Filmed with irony, the film describes brief moments in the lives of tourists, workers, and local vacationers around the construction of an artificial beach somewhere in the Caribbean.
Site of Sites

Nearly half a century ago, Carmen Ignarra arrived to Mexico after leaving behind her Cuban homeland, in the hopes of becoming the greatest Caribbean actress in Hollywood. But the American dream tur- ned out to be more difficult than she’d thought, and her brief initial success was followed by a slow, painful decline. Today, at 80, the woman who was once Cuba’s most beautiful actress lives totally forgotten in an old mansion in Monterrey. There she survives thanks to her tenants—strange men who she is constantly blaming for mysterious thefts and disappearances. Laura, a young woman also from the Caribbean, arrives at the mansion to work as an assistant in cleaning and housekeeping. With her she brings a video camera and the secret intention of making a documentary about the diva. Together they talk about the past, about wasted talent and lost loves.
Carmita

Following a suicide attempt, 19 year old Lito travels from Monterrey to Querétaro to visit his 20 years old cousin Koko; where he joins his group of friends with the intention of selling drugs to pay for a weekend trip to the beaches of Michoacán. Among psychotropic pills, LSD and mushrooms; among improvised friendships and trips to nature, a bond is created reinforcing their friendship; while Lito seems to find the path towards reconciliation.
Psychotropic Sunrise

An intimate portrait of four children coming of age and the role of music in their journey. The children tell their stories through Bachata, a once proscribed music that has become the Dominican Republic's primary cultural export.
Bittersweet

Jean Remy is a Haitian man struggling to find employment in Dominican Republic. Confronted with rejection and discrimination in the city, he sets off to try his luck in the countryside. Imbued with a naturalistic grace, this deeply sympathetic portrait speaks eloquently to the trials of humanity.
Jean Gentil

Omar and Nini are a young couple in bloom, sharing a small apartment in Santo Domingo where they make love and tend to their blind cat Luna. When their paths as creative freelancers begin to sour and financial uncertainty exposes deep resentments, a new job opportunity for Nini offers a potential lifeline. They chase for whatever can give a spark to their relationship, but in the harsh light of adulthood, they might realize that there’s no such thing as a fresh start.
Interior Apartment Day

Noelí becomes an actress and travels to Europe, where she reunites with her mother and starts feeling homesick.