Zaira Aguilar | Director & Writer

Zaira Belen Aguilar is a Mexican-American filmmaker from Los Angles, California. From a young age, she discovered her voice through filmmaking. She decided she wanted to further the education in cinema after winning a director’s award at the National High School Journalism Convention. She continued her cinema studies at Santa Monica college, collaborating on various film projects and discovered her love for post-production. While Zaira would work on sets during the weekends, on the weekdays she was busy running her own non-profit film program for underprivileged youth at Sun Valley Middle school.

After graduating with honors from Santa Monica College she received an academic scholarship to continue her film studies at San Francisco State University. In her first year, she was accepted into the 56th annual SFSU film finals festival, for her comedic documentary, Savages. In 2017 she was one of the sixteen students to be admitted into the university’s year-long thesis program. She wrote, directed, and edited her short narrative film, Dear Bella.

Dear Bella was awarded the prestigious Robin Eickman Cinema Student Scholarship for her directing and editing style. Zaira graduated cum laude with a Bachelors degree in Cinematic Arts with an emphasis in Film Production. She continues to collaborate on projects as an editor and colorist.