Director, Screenplay
María Gamboa Jaramillo
Director of Mateo, Colombian film selected in the Ibero-American competitions at the Miami and Cartagena film festivals
Gamboa was born in Bogota. She studied film production and direction at New York University (Tisch School of the Arts), film history and theory at Paris I - Sorbonne, and film workshop at L’école nationale supérieure des métiers de l’image et du son (FEMIS).
María has lived in New York and Paris, where she has been an assistant director in several film productions and editor for television programs.
Since 2006, she has been based in Bogota, where she has directed two seasons of the teen-oriented TV series Revelados for Colombian Channel 13. The first season dealt with the prevention of teenagers joining the armed conflict, and the second looked at the reintegration of demobilized paramilitaries and guerrillas into civilian life.
She temporarily moved to the Colombian Middle Magdalena region in 2007 to research and begin development of her opera prima Mateo, which will premiere in 2014. The project has received script development awards from the Film Development Fund of Colombia, IBERMEDIA’s film development grant, the production grant from the Film Development Fund in 2013, and a post-production grant from the French Cinema du Monde fund. She has also been invited to participate in the Amiens International Film Festival for the development fund, in the 32nd Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana, the International Producers Meeting at the Cartagena International Film Festival, and the Sixth Ibero-American Film Co-Production Meeting at the Guadalajara International Film Festival.
Before beginning to develop Mateo, María directed the short film 20 MIL, which received awards for Best Director at the El Espejo International Short Film Festival, Best Female Actor at the International In Vitro Visual Festival (FIIVV - Colombia), and Best Female Vision at the Cero Latitud Festival (Ecuador). She was also selected for the First Latin American Short Film Festival (Venezuela), the Corto Circuito Latin American Short Film Festival (New York), and the VIVA International Short Film Festival (Manchester, England).
She directed the documentary Merquemos Juntos (Let’s Shop Together), which narrates the success story of a community bank created by a group of women in the Comuna 7 district of Barrancabermeja, the Colombia’s foremost oil town. She also edited the documentaries Personal Che (2006), directed by Adriana Mariño and Douglas Duarte; Claribel Alegría (2009) by Álvaro Ramírez; Shooting Colombia (2009) by Alan Wagenberg; and Qué Hay para la Cabeza (2010) by Alejandro Angulo and Carlos Mario Urrea.