La Isla
Released: 2023
Running Time: 16mins
Directed by Amada Torruella
Produced by Amada Torruella & Seth Gadsden
Edited by Sarah Garrahan
Cinematography by Seth Gadsden
El Salvador
Full Credits
Directed by
Amada Torruella
Produced by
Amada Torruella
Seth Gadsden
Edited by
Sarah Garrahan
Testimonies
Isamar Granados
Marta “Tita” Pérez
Alma Carolina Gutiérrez
Yahaira Varga
Cinematography
Seth Gadsden
Additional Camera
Amada Torruella
Sound Design
Brian Berger
Executive Producer, The New Yorker
Paul Moakley
Supervising Producer, The New Yorker
Melissa Fajardo
Associate Producer, The New Yorker
Devon Blackwell
Production Assistance
Sandra Hernandez
Consulting Producer
Tatiana Alemán
Associate Producer
Sarah Garrahan
Color Correction
Adrian Quetzal Randall
Consultant
Leslie Schuld
Special Thanks
Abraham Abrego
Gallito Gustavo Adolfo
Luis Aguillon
Jess Alvarenga
Monica Campos
Centro de Intercambio y Solidaridad
Daniel Chávez-Ontiveros
Sue Ding
Emily Harrold
Juan López
Oriana van Praag
Maria Luisa Santos
Jamie Self
Adrianna Requena
Las Familias de Isla El Espíritu Santo
Transformed by waves of mass-arrests without due process, communities across El Salvador are facing profound isolation and grief under the “régimen de excepción.” A story of both profound love and enigmatic absence, we follow a group of women as they await the release of their partners, the island’s boatmen, from detention.
Published by The New Yorker on September 27, 2023.
Vena Acuática
Status: Production
Feature Documentary
Directed by Amada Torruella
Produced by Amada Torruella, Seth Gadsden, Brenda Avila
Co-Produced by Maria Luisa Santosco
El Salvador, U.S.A
info@venaacuatica.com
An intimate and tender journey through the body-territory relationship in El Salvador, Vena Acuática is a mosaic of collective resistance, womanhood, and family, unfolding against the backdrop of migration, water rights and ecocide.
Sásabe
Status: Production
Short Documentary
Directed & Produced by Amada Torruella & Seth Gadsden
Co-Produced by Dora Rodriguez
Mexico, U.S.A.
A group of women displaced from their homes due to recent Cartel violence reflect on their work providing assistance and care to asylum seekers in their community. Sásabe is an intimate look at care work in the midst of migration flows in the borderland region of Sonora, Mexico through the memories and flashbacks of a collective of caregivers.
Sisiguayo
Status: Post-Production
Short Documentary
Directed, Edited, and Cinematography by Bajo Lempa Youth Group
Produced by Amada Torruella & Seth Gadsden
El Salvador
Centered around collective memory and the sole survivor of a state massacre in their community in 1982, youth in the Bajo Lempa explore past traumas.
Sisiguayo is a part of Vena Lab.
Tamales y Tunasss
Released: 2020
Running Time: 14 mins
Directed by Lucia Archila Escobar
Produced by Amada Torruella & Seth Gadsden
Cinematography by Amada Torruella
Edited by Maria Luisa Santos
U.S.A.
In the South Carolina Indigenous Guatemalan community, women face healthcare barriers that make it difficult to carry their pregnancies to term. Here, pregnant Erlinda longs for the familiar tastes of the nopal fruit, while Fabiana spends her days making tamales to get over a heartbreaking loss. An intimate look at family life, Tamales y Tunas asks what it means to make one’s way through motherhood far from the comforts of home.
Premiered at BlackStar and also screened at the New Orleans Film Festival, and the Philadelphia Latino Film Festival.