Director, Screenplay, Producer, Executive Producer
Rafael Martínez
www.rafamartinezdirector.cominfo@rafamartinezdirector.com
Rafael Martínez is a director and screenwriter born in Cartagena, Colombia, in 1980. He has 14 years of experience in the audiovisual field during which time he has written and directed six short films in addition to documentaries, experimental videos, web content, and music videos for important bands in Colombia, London, New York, and Madrid, garnering national and international recognition.
Martínez has directed close to 200 commercials for brands such as Ford, Avianca, Cartagena Film Festival (FICCI), Sab Miller, Pepsi, General Motors, Procter & Gamble, Pernod Ricard, Nestlé, Juan Valdéz, Claro, Ramo, Grupo Éxito, Bogocine, Bimbo, Terpel, Helm Bank, El Tiempo, and others. He has worked with bands including Son Palenque, Systema Solar, Divagash, and Sanalejo to produce music videos that have gone on to be selected and awarded at El Dorado, NOVA, Shock Awards, and BOGOSHORTS, as well as festivals in London and New York.
His first short film Joaquín &… Rita(?) (2010) was made in the United States. His second short film La fábula del Negro Bautista (2010) received the Santa Lucia Award for Best Film and Best Poster at the 2011 Bogota International Short Film Festival—BOGOSHORTS and the Jury Award at the 2010 Cambridge International Super 8 Film Festival, in addition to being selected for New York’s Flicker Film Festival, The Canton Palace International Film Festival, and the Nemzetközi Super 8 mm Fesztivál.
His third short was Alfredo Guerrero (2011), an artistic film exhibited at the Art Fields Center in Lake City, South Carolina. A year later he released a new work in the same genre, The Holy Beauty Project Vol.3, which was part of the Official Selection of the New York’s Video Art and Experimental Film Festival in 2013. In 2012 he premiered 120 Minutes of Freedom, a documentary made for Bogocine 2012. In 2015 he returned to fiction with the short Numeros Redondos that was part of the Official Selection of the fifty-seventh ZINEBI in Spain, Miami Short Film Festival, Hayah in Panama, BOGOSHORTS, ColFilmNY, Short Waves, and the Short Film Corner at the Cannes Film Festival in 2016.
His first feature film El Piedra (2019) was the winner of the Air France-KLM Audience Award for Best Film at the fourth Bogotá International Film Festival (BIFF), the opening film of the Cine en los Barrios section of the fifty-ninth Cartagena Film Festival (FICCI), included in the Official Selection of the Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival, the twelvth Dominican Global Film Festival in the Dominican Republic, the thirty-fifth Chicago Latin American Film Festival, the seventh Colombian Film Festival New York, and the Latin American Cinema Official Selection at the seventh Barranquilla International Film Festival (FICBAQ), among others.
For its development and production, The film received an FDC screenwriting grant in 2014 and debut feature production grant in 2015. It won the prize for Best Debut Feature Film Pitch at the Villa de Leyva International Film Festival (2014), an Honorable Mention at the Barranquilla festival’s BAQLAB (2014), was selected for the Plume & Pellicule international writers workshop (Switzerland), Meet Your Match in Los Angeles, and the Screenwriting Competition at the thirty-seventh Havana Film Festival. It was the winner of the Centro Ático BAM Awards at the eleventh International Producers Forum held at FICCI 56.
The script for his second feature film Temporada baja, written with Antonio García, received a screenwriting grant from FDC in 2016, was part of the Oaxaca Film Festival Global Script Challenge in Mexico, and the Santa Fe de Antioquia Film Festival's International Script Workshop of in 2015.
May, 2019