Elisa Miller

Despite the variety of topics explored on her narratives, ranging from adolescence to adulthood conflicts, Elisa Miller’s films are characterized by a focus on human solitude and the internal struggles for decision making, particularly under external pressures. Miller has expressed that these two subjects are commonly depicted in her cinema because of how meaningful and relevant they are in her personal and professional life. The exploration of these personal themes through film, which she defines as an Art Therapy method, enables her to “dig into her inner emotions [and] reflect about the reasons behind [her] life experiences.”

Elisa Miller's films are characterized by its documentary style. As a great admirer of Chantal Akerman’s works, especially the film News From Home (1977), Miller has tried to incorporate formal documentary qualities in her narratives. She seeks to create films that “[lie] in between the thin border of documentary and fiction,” by including spontaneous events that not always follow the original script. This aspect can be seen in films like Vete Más Lejos, Alicia where Miller allowed the film events to happen organically, and captured non-planned phenomena as they traverse the filming locations:

“[Vete más lejos, Alicia], we had really clear the geographic journey of the character and, of course, the emotions that we wanted to portray. However, a lot of stuff was [spontaneous] Look at that light! Look how the dirt is moving! Let’s film! […] Many elements were only thought by looking at them physically […] at the moment. I don’t really like stopping life so that I can film [but] on the other way around, to incorporate to life and take from [it] the things that you cannot imagine […] Everything is about experimentation."

“I [personally] never confronted machismo in cinema; however, in [El Placer es Mío] I had a hard time demonstrating my abilities to men in my crew. I found myself constantly [explaining] that not only because I was a woman I didn’t know what I was doing.

In addition to continuing working in film treatments and scripts for future projects, in 2018 Miller began to work as an instructor at the Escuela Itinerante de Cine y Narrativa Audiovisual in Mexico City. Her workshops are focused on film directing, screenwriting, and montage. Her classes seek to enhance the development of personal ideas through introspection, which is a technique that she has utilized in her filmmaking career.

In 2015, Miller participated once again in the 13º Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) with her second full-length film El Placer es Mío (The Pleasure is Mine, 2015), a film that portrays the difficulties of adult relationships. Although Miller’s work obtained mixed responses, especially due to the audience’s reaction to the unconventional and explicit display of masculine nudity, the film was awarded the Best First/Second Feature Film Award.

Four years later and after meeting the English artist Sarah Lucas during her art exhibitions in Mexico, Elisa Miller directed and produced her first documentary film, About Sarah (2014). This documentary exposes the life of Sarah Lucas over a period of one year, including her artistic work and personal life. The film was distributed in both the United Kingdom and Mexico; however, it was only released in a few theaters in the latter. The same year, Miller collaborated as the producer executive for Gustavo Gamou’s documentary El Regreso del Muerto (The Return of the Dead, 2014), a film that narrates the life of a man who fakes his death in order to escape from the organized crime. This was the first time that Miller produced a film that she did not direct.

Following the success of Ver Llover, Miller produces her senior thesis Roma (2008). Taking a humanitarian approach, Roma narrates the story of a worker who finds and helps a woman illegally traveling inside a train that arrives at the soap factory where he works. The short film also ended up being a national and international success and helped her to establish her reputation as a promising filmmaker in her country of origin. Roma won the Studio 5 de Mayo Special Price at the 6º Morelia International Film Festival (FICM) in Mexico, the Best Short Film Price at the 10º IMAGO - International Youth Film Festival in Portugal, the Best Director Price for student projects at the 8º Pune International Film Festival (PIFF) in India, and an honorific mention at the 12º Guanajuato International Film Festival (GIFF), also in Mexico. In 2010 and as a response to the social pressures and expectations regarding her future projects, Miller released her first full-length film Vete Más Lejos, Alicia (Alicia, Go Yonder, 2010), which tells the story of a young woman who escapes from home as a result of family pressures regarding her professional future. Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar has been argued by Miller to be an inspiration for the project. The film was internationally released during the 40º editions of the International Film Festival Rotterdam and it was nominated for the Tiger Award, the maximum price at the Dutch festival. Despite its success in Europe, the film was neither appraised nor nationally distributed in Mexico. Some film critics at the Morelia International Film Festival went even further into calling it a mediocre work. These responses had an emotional impact on Miller's career.

Miller's career as a recognized filmmaker began years before earning her bachelor's degree in film. While she was still a student at the CCC, she produced the short film Ver Llover (2007) for one of her production classes. Ver Llover narrates the story of two inseparable friends, Jonah and Sophia, whose relationship deteriorates as Sophia decides to leave her hometown and Jonah struggles to decide whether to follow his friend or stay with his stagnant mother at a family-owned hotel. Even though her film did not do well as an assignment and was highly criticized by her classmates, she decided to submit it to the 4º Morelia International Film Festival (FICM). The film was nominated and awarded in the category of Best Fiction Short Film. Encouraged by her relatives and close friends, and after seeing the short film's success in Mexico, Miller converted her film into a 35 millimeters copy and submitted it to the 60º edition of the Cannes Film Festival. Ver Llover was awarded the Short Film Golden Palm in 2007 and Miller became the first Mexican female director to receive the prize.

Elisa Miller Encinas is a Mexican award-winning film director, writer, and producer. She studied English Literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and film direction at the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC) in Mexico City. She is the first and only Mexican female filmmaker to win the Golden Palm for a short fiction feature at the Cannes Film Festival. Her first short film Ver Llover (Watching It Rain, 2006) was nationally and internationally awarded in 2007.

During her time in France, Miller was once again exposed to cinema. In addition to the upper division courses that she studied at Aix-Marseille, she enrolled in numerous film history electives that, for the first time, excited her about the possibility to major in film. This idea was reinforced after studying the works of Latin American filmmakers, particularly the Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel in her film La Ciénaga (The Swamp, 2001). With figures like Akerman and Martel, Miller realized that “[she] could also make films [based on] what [she] knew” and that being a woman was not an impediment to do it. After her return to Mexico and after earning her degree in English Literature at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), Miller applied and got accepted into the Centro de Capacitación Cinematográfica (CCC) where she earned her degree in cinematography and film directing.

Elisa Miller was born in Mexico City, Mexico in July 1982. Miller was introduced to the world of cinema at a very young age. Her grandmother, a French resident established in Paris, told her stories about her experiences of attending French movie theaters and watching films from well-known authors, including Claire Denis and the Belgian director Chantal Akerman, a filmmaker that became a source of inspiration in her later works and career as a director. Furthermore, as a member of a family of film casting workers, she was early exposed to different aspects of pre-production in the Mexican film industry. Nonetheless, this rich film background did not initially motivate Miller to study film.