Lourdes Portillo, the Mexican-born, Chicana-identified filmmaker who crafted nuanced film and video works that center the emotions and circumstances of diverse Latinx experiences, died on Saturday, April 20 at her home in San Francisco. She died peacefully, surrounded by her three sons and a younger sister, according to a friend.
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures presented a 10-day major retrospective of Portillo’s workin 2023, highlighted by a screening of her 2001 documentary Missing Young Woman (Señorita Extraviada).
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Portillo was an unconventional, artful talent who combined filmmaking and activism. Oscar-nominated for her documentary feature Las Madres – The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, “Portillo’s works defy categorization, slipping easily between docu-fiction, experimental video, and the melodrama of telenovelas,” as described by the Academy Museum’s interim director, film program, K.J. Relth-Miller.
Born on November 11, 1943, in Chihuahua, Mexico, she immigrated with her parents and four siblings to Los Angeles.
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