Azulejos Summary

Azulejos explores the themes of cultural tension between the LGBTQ+ community and older generations that immigrated from Cuba. Daniela visits her grandmother, Miriam, with the intention of finally coming out to her as lesbian. Our production team was composed of talented and experienced cinematographers. As the Director of Lighting, I was responsible for the creative direction and arrangement of all lights used within the film. We released the film in the Spring of 2022 and have since earned numerous accolades such as Best In Show and Best Cinematography at both the University of Miami Cane’s Film Festival and FilmGate Short Film Festival.

Our vision for this film was to capture Daniella and Miriam’s gentle relationship through cinematography. We achieved a natural and soft look by creating light setups that replicated the feeling of the specific time of day. My mentor, Ali Habashi, once told me,  “the best lighting is the type that feels like it's not even there.” We also wanted to play with changing the color temperature throughout to symbolize how the grandmother and granddaughter’s relationship develops. At the beginning, you feel the coldness of the room; but, as they warm up to each other, so does the color temperature of the lights.

Our Vision