Elisa Miller facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Elisa Miller
Born	Elisa Miller Encinas July 1982 Mexico City, Mexico
Education	Film directing English Literature
Alma mater	Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica National Autonomous University of Mexico
Occupation	Filmmaker Producer Writer
Years active	2006–present
Notable work	Ver Llover Roma El Placer es Mío

Elisa Miller Encinas is a talented Mexican film director, writer, and producer. She studied English literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and learned film directing at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC) in Mexico City. She made history as the first and only Mexican female filmmaker to win the Golden Palm award for a short film at the famous Cannes Film Festival. Her first short film, Ver Llover (Watching It Rain), released in 2006, won many awards both in Mexico and around the world in 2007.

Early Life and Education

Elisa Miller was born in Mexico City, Mexico in July 1982. She became interested in movies from a very young age. Her grandmother, who lived in Paris, France, used to tell her exciting stories about going to French movie theaters. She watched films by famous directors like Claire Denis and Chantal Akerman. Akerman's films later became a big inspiration for Elisa's own work.

Elisa also grew up in a family where some members worked in the film industry, helping to choose actors for movies. This meant she saw different parts of how movies are made from an early age. However, even with this background, Elisa didn't initially plan to study film.

After finishing high school in Mexico City, when she was 19, Elisa started studying philosophy at the Aix-Marseille University in France. But after a few months, she found the language difficult and didn't enjoy her chosen subject. So, she decided to leave school and return to Mexico City.

While she was in France, Elisa became interested in cinema again. Besides her main courses, she took many classes about film history. For the first time, she felt excited about the idea of studying film. This feeling grew stronger after she studied films by Latin American directors, especially La Ciénaga (The Swamp, 2001) by the Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel. Seeing filmmakers like Akerman and Martel made Elisa realize that she could also make movies based on what she knew. She understood that being a woman wouldn't stop her from doing it.

After returning to Mexico, Elisa earned her degree in English literature from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). Then, she applied to the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC), a film school, and was accepted. There, she earned her degree in cinematography and film directing.

Career Highlights

Elisa Miller's career as a recognized filmmaker began even before she finished her film degree. While she was still a student at the CCC, she made the short film Ver Llover (2007) for one of her classes. This film tells the story of two close friends, Jonah and Sophia. Their friendship changes when Sophia decides to leave her hometown, and Jonah struggles to decide if he should follow her or stay with his mother at their family hotel.

Even though her film didn't get good grades as a school assignment and her classmates criticized it, Elisa decided to submit it to the 4th Morelia International Film Festival (FICM). The film was nominated and won the award for Best Fiction Short Film. Encouraged by her family and friends, and seeing how well the short film did in Mexico, Elisa had her film copied onto 35 millimeters and sent it to the 60th Cannes Film Festival. In 2007, Ver Llover won the Short Film Golden Palm award, making Elisa Miller the first Mexican female director to receive this honor.

After the success of Ver Llover, Elisa made her senior thesis film, Roma (2008). This film has a kind and helpful message. It tells the story of a worker who finds and helps a woman traveling illegally inside a train that arrives at the soap factory where he works. This short film also became a success both in Mexico and internationally. It helped her become known as a promising filmmaker in her home country. Roma won the Studio 5 de Mayo Special prize at the 6th Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) in Mexico. It also won the Best Short Film Prize at the 10th IMAGO - International Youth Film Festival in Portugal, and the Best Director Prize for student projects at the 8th Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) in India. It also received an honorable mention at the 12th Guanajuato International Film Festival (GIFF) in Mexico.

In 2010, Elisa released her first full-length movie, Vete Más Lejos, Alicia (Alicia, Go Yonder, 2010). This film was made in response to the pressure and expectations she felt about her future projects. It tells the story of a young woman who runs away from home because of family pressure about her future career. Elisa has said that Sylvia Plath's book The Bell Jar inspired this project. The film was shown internationally at the 40th International Film Festival Rotterdam and was nominated for the Tiger Award, which is the top prize at that Dutch festival. Even though it was successful in Europe, the film was not highly praised or widely shown in Mexico. Some film critics at the Morelia International Film Festival even called it a "mediocre" work. These reactions had a strong impact on Elisa's career.

Four years later, after meeting the English artist Sarah Lucas during her art shows in Mexico, Elisa Miller directed and produced her first documentary film, About Sarah (2014). This documentary shows Sarah Lucas's life over one year, including her art and personal life. The film was shown in both the United Kingdom and Mexico. However, it was only released in a few theaters in Mexico. In the same year, Elisa also worked as an executive producer for Gustavo Gamou's documentary El Regreso del Muerto (The Return of the Dead, 2014). This film tells the story of a man who fakes his death to escape from organized crime. This was the first time Elisa produced a film that she did not direct herself.

In 2015, Elisa Miller participated again in the 13th Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) with her second full-length film, El Placer es Mío (The Pleasure is Mine, 2015). This movie shows the challenges of adult relationships. While Elisa's film received mixed reactions, especially because of how the audience reacted to some scenes, it won the Best First/Second Feature Film Award.

Besides working on ideas and scripts for future movies, in 2018 Elisa Miller started teaching at the Escuela Itinerante de Cine y Narrativa Audiovisual in Mexico City. Her workshops focus on film directing, screenwriting, and editing. Her classes aim to help students develop their own ideas by looking inward, a technique she uses in her own filmmaking.

In 2022, it was announced that Elisa Miller would direct a film adaptation of Fernanda Melchor's 2017 novel Hurricane Season. This film was produced by Netflix.

Themes and Styles in Film

Common Themes in Elisa Miller's Films

Elisa Miller's films explore many different topics, from teenage years to adult challenges. However, they often focus on human loneliness and the inner struggles people face when making decisions, especially when feeling pressure from outside. Elisa has said that these two subjects are often shown in her movies because they are very important and meaningful in her own life. She sees exploring these personal themes through film as a type of "Art Therapy." It helps her "dig into her inner emotions and think about why her life experiences happened."

But loneliness and pressure are not the only subjects in Elisa's films. As a filmmaker who supports women's rights and strongly believes in including women in the Mexican film industry, Elisa has also focused on showing women's strength in her movies. Except for El Placer es Mío, where the main female character chooses to stay in a sad relationship, most of her other films and short films show female characters who are strong and determined as they live their daily lives. In her films, including Ver Llover, Vete más lejos, Alicia, and her documentary About Sarah, women are shown as brave and persistent individuals who are willing to follow their goals and challenge old-fashioned beliefs. Also, because she often works with female cinematographers (like María Secco) and screenwriters (like Gabriela Vidal), her films often share a female point of view.

Elisa Miller's Unique Film Styles

Elisa Miller's films are known for their documentary-like style. She greatly admires Chantal Akerman's work, especially the film News From Home (1977). Elisa has tried to include real-life documentary qualities in her stories. She aims to create films that "lie in between the thin border of documentary and fiction." This means she includes spontaneous events that don't always follow the original script. You can see this in films like Vete Más Lejos, Alicia, where Elisa allowed things to happen naturally. She filmed unplanned moments as they occurred in the filming locations:

“[Vete más lejos, Alicia], we had really clear the geographic journey of the character and, of course, the emotions that we wanted to portray. However, a lot of stuff was [spontaneous] Look at that light! Look how the dirt is moving! Let's film! […] Many elements were only thought by looking at them physically […] at the moment. I don't really like stopping life so that I can film [but] on the other way around, to incorporate to life and take from [it] the things that you cannot imagine […] Everything is about experimentation."

Besides allowing spontaneous events, Elisa also tries to highlight the real personalities of the actors. Instead of just filming actors following a script, she wants to create characters that have the same personalities as the actors. This makes their performance seem natural, as if she is filming regular people. Also, her films do not focus on showing characters who fit typical Hollywood beauty standards. Instead, she shows individuals who truly reflect what modern society is like.

Personal Life and Challenges

While Ver Llover marked the start of Elisa Miller's film career both in Mexico and worldwide, it also brought some difficult times in her personal life. For Elisa, winning the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival created a lot of emotional pressure:

“What happened is that it gave a boost to my career. It was a kick […] On the other hand, it generated an expectation in a personal level and in others, either producers [and] the press […] Suddenly, I was facing an expectation that I was not even able to handle myself.”

To deal with this pressure in Mexico, Elisa worked with actress Sofia Espinosa, a longtime friend, and cinematographer María Secco. Together, they made her first full-length movie, Vete mas lejos, Alicia. This film was closely connected to her emotional state at the time:

“ [Vete Más Lejos, Alicia] is a response to all those people that were asking, what are you going to do now? […] I felt the same pressure that Alicia was feeling. She is a 19 years old character that graduates from high school and whose parents were constantly asking or saying, what will you study? What are you going to do? What do you want to do? Make decisions! Make decisions! And that is what we portrayed on screen. That moment of, I don't know! I want to leave far away! I don't want to say anything! I don't know, let me go to the end of the world by myself!”

Elisa has also faced challenges related to gender in her career. During the filming of her movie El Placer es Mío, she had to deal with some crew members who did not respect her role as a film director. Some even called her "the little girl" when she tried to assert her authority.

“I [personally] never confronted machismo in cinema; however, in [El Placer es Mío] I had a hard time demonstrating my abilities to men in my crew. I found myself constantly [explaining] that not only because I was a woman I didn't know what I was doing.

Even though the filming continued and the crew members eventually started to respect her work, it wasn't immediate. Elisa also felt she had to act more intimidating to be taken seriously as a leader.

Filmography

Awards and Recognition

See also

In Spanish: Elisa Miller para niños