Cecilia Cornejo Sotelo is a Chilean-born documentary filmmaker, artist, and teacher based in Northfield, Minnesota. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communications Studies from The University of Iowa and a Master of Fine Arts in Film, Video, and New Media from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. With ties to both the American Midwest and the central coast of Chile, Cecilia’s work explores notions of displacement and belonging and is rooted in the experience of living in-between cultures. She uses a range of approaches and production methodologies—from the very personal and essayistic to the expansive and collaborative—to create works that move fluidly from the local to the global, and from the intimate to the openly political.
Cecilia is invested in developing effective methods of collaboration with the people who take part in her work by transforming documentary subjects into active participants, co-creators of meaning, and architects of their representation. She is the recipient of an Established Artist Grant from the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council (2014), a Jerome Foundation Film, Video, and Digital Media Grant (2016), and Artist Initiative Grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board (2016 and 2018). Her work has shown locally and abroad at venues such as MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight, L’Alternativa (Spain), Arsenale (Germany), InVideo (Italy), Melbourne Latin American Film Festival, Puerto Vallarta International Film Festival (Mexico), Festival Internacional de Documentales de Santiago (Chile), Cine las Américas (Texas), National Museum of Women in the Arts, Athens International Film Festival, Tucson Underground Film Festival, Gene Siskel Film Center, Miami International Film Festival, Minneapolis/St. Paul International Film Festival, and Frozen River Film Festival. She teaches in the Cinema and Media Studies Department at Carleton College.
About the Work
There is a concept that comes from agriculture that illustrates my working method and that is pivotal to the creative work I do. It’s the concept of la milpa, a crop-growing system used by the Mayans and other cultures throughout Mesoamerica where at least three types of plants are cultivated: corn, beans and squash. These crops offer a nutritious diet and complement one another at various levels. As a system, la milpa is designed to function at a human scale—the main goal being self-sustenance while the surplus is bartered or sold—and its role encompasses the supplying of food for the family as well as the nourishing of social interactions that ensure a dignified and sustainable way of life.
Similar to la milpa, my work centers in a few complementary practices: filmmaking, teaching, and the development of cultural initiatives that often times, but not always, take the shape of curated film series. While these undertakings generate projects with distinctive traits and unique life spans, they all aim to satisfy my appetite for learning, for artistic exploration, as well as my need to develop a sustainable artistic practice.