Inspiring practices and policies for incorporating an anti-racist and decolonial perspective into audiovisual media

Beatriz Mbula is an Afro-descendant filmmaker and actress born in Valencia. Her artistic practice explores the identity and representation of Black people, while questioning the imaginaries and structures that determine who gets to tell stories within the Spanish audiovisual industry.

She trained in acting at RESAD and with the Carlos III University of Madrid Theatre Group, before furthering her studies at ESTC in Lisbon and completing a Master’s degree in TV Series Screenwriting at ECAM. In 2020, she created Asunto Casting, a web series that, through humour and personal experience, shed light on the difficulties and contradictions faced by racialised actresses within the Spanish audiovisual industry. The project became one of the first platforms through which she began to develop her own perspective on representation, identity and access to creative work.

Since then, she has developed fiction, documentary and digital creative projects. Her series Las Chicas Son, a comedy starring four Black Spanish women in Madrid, was selected for Cambia de Plano, a programme promoted by DAMA and Netflix, and for FRAPA – Festival de Roteiro Audiovisual de Porto Alegre. In 2024, she directed the short film Duma and subsequently created Cuca Guerra Original, continuing her exploration of new ways of storytelling and engaging with audiences.

Alongside her work as a creator, she develops research and training projects focused on diversity and anti-racism in the audiovisual industry.

She is a member of the board of directors of CIMA and takes part in initiatives aimed at broadening the diversity of those who write, direct, produce and make decisions within the industry.

Cultural manager and researcher specializing in migration, diversity, and cultural rights. In 2008, she co-founded YoSoyElOtro Cultural Association, where she currently serves as director. From this platform, she researches, designs, and develops projects that expand the cultural and artistic participation and representation of migrant, migrant-origin, and racialized communities.

Her work combines research, creative practice, curating, community engagement, and cultural policy advocacy. She has coordinated publications such as El Otrx: Art, Culture and Migration in the City of Madrid and projects including Migration and Culture, Migrant Voices, and the exhibition Migration and Culture: A Madrid on the Border of the Visible (National Museum of Anthropology, 2024).

She has also contributed to the reporting and documentation of the Inequality strand of the Cultural Rights Plan of the Spanish Ministry of Culture.

Filmmaker and cultural producer. Her work is grounded in research, process and meaning. At the heart of her creative practice is the Caribbean, with its multiple roots and diasporas.

As a producer, she has been involved in award-winning feature films such as Cocote, Canción a Una Dama en la Sombra, La Fiera y la Fiesta, El Silencio del Viento and El Cosmonauta, as well as documentary series such as VPRO’s From Bahía to Brooklyn and ALJAZEERA’s Dreams Without Borders. She has collaborated with organisations and cultural spaces including DocumentaMadrid, Casa de América, Círculo de Bellas Artes, the Tarifa African Film Festival, MIDBO, Doctubre DOCSMX, Festival Ícaro and the Mesoamerica Industry Circle.

Her work has received support from institutions and organisations including the Sundance Institute, TorinoFeatureLab, Locarno Open Doors, Ibermedia, World Cinema Fund, Visions Sud Est, ARTEKino, the International Documentary Association (IDA), Chicken & Egg, Cannes Docs and Marché du Film’s “Producers on the Spotlight”, CineMart, Berlinale EFM, Talents Guadalajara, Fonprocine, ICAA Spain, ICEC Catalonia, UN Women, FIDOCS, DocumentaPro and Nodo Sur Impact Forum, among others.

She is a fellow of the Sundance Documentary Producers Lab & Fellowship and EURODOC. She has served on selection committees for international funds and programmes including Hubert Bals, DAFO (Peru) and ACAU’s Minority Co-production Fund (Uruguay).

Beyond cinema, her work seeks to expand spaces for encounter, memory and creation.