Pedro Valiente(I)

Award-winning filmmaker Pedro Valiente explores new narratives through visual theater, writing, and visual art. He has received two Berlinale awards and an Emmy nomination, along with nearly sixty honors, including screenings at over 100 film festivals (Sundance, SXSW), TV networks (PBS, BBC, TVE, Canal+), and exhibitions at MoMA, the Whitney Biennial, and Lincoln Center. Pedro's film career began in New York, where he studied and worked for over a decade, and he has also lived in Mexico City and the UK.

Pedro describes his work as interdisciplinary and multicultural storytelling under the idea of "ecology of souls." Recent projects include the video installation trilogy Multiple Portraits (2024) and the award-winning transmedia documentary film You Are Mythical (2018), which connects daily life with classic myths.

In New York Spin, "a part experimental tone poem, part heartfelt elegy for 9/11, and part paean to the cultural richness of Gotham," Pedro focuses on six New Yorkers. "This engrossing, imagistic portrait of the city and its denizens should prove a welcome short addition to fest and arty cable lineups," wrote Ronnie Scheib in Variety. Carole Dean of the Roy W. Dean Foundation called it "filmmaking talent," while Deborah Cravey from the Digital Media Center remarked, "I'm fascinated by this project: concept, people, structure, everything intrigues me."

'Cuba 15' was a standout success, with LA Times calling it "as delightful as anything I've seen upon a television screen." Amy Taubin of The Village Voice praised its protagonist, saying, "We learn more from her in 15 minutes than from a half-dozen feature documentaries." Pedro produced Cuba 15 by Elizabeth Schub, which won the Jury Prize and Audience Award for Best Short Film at Berlinale (Panorama), screened at over 40 festivals, and aired on POV (PBS). He also worked as assistant director on films produced by Steven Soderbergh and Spike Lee, and collaborated with Saturday Night Live (NBC), Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, and The Rockefeller Foundation. He co-produced Forgetful, which won 16 awards.

In visual theater, Pedro collaborated for three years on video design for The Days Before DDDIII, directed by Robert Wilson with text by Umberto Eco and music by Ryuichi Sakamoto, featuring Fiona Shaw and Isabella Rossellini at Lincoln Center. Pedro also authored a PhD dissertation that became a book series on Wilson's creative process. He participated in workshops with the Wooster Group, Trisha Brown Dance Company, and Atsushi Takenouchi, and presented Japanese butoh dance at Mexico City's National Center for the Arts. In Madrid, he coordinated a theater-dance company inspired by Joan Brossa and Kazuo Ohno and directed a university theater company that used video on stage in early performances of works by Bernard-Marie Koltès, Sergi Belbel, and Julio Cortázar.

Pedro's international work includes roles as director of International Relations at the New York Film Academy, co-producer of Film MOOCs for edX by MIT/Harvard, program leader for BA Hons Contemporary Media Practice at Arts University Plymouth (UK), and European project media director at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. He has lectured internationally for over 10 years and has a PhD in Audiovisual Creativity and Production, alongside MA degrees in Cinema Studies and Journalism. He has received training in Film, Photography, Writing, Theater/Dance (NY), and Visual Art (UK).