Cristina Kotz Cornejo is an Argentine-American director and screenwriter who divides her time between Boston, Mexico City, and Buenos Aires. She is a descendant of the Huarpe people of the Cuyo region and was educated in the US and Argentina.
Biography
Kotz Cornejo is a graduate of New York University's Tisch School of the Arts graduate film program and the University of Southern California's undergraduate program in international relations. She studied directing under Spike Lee, Nancy Savoca, Sara Driver and French filmmaker Pascal Aubier while at NYU Film School. She also holds a Master of Arts degree in organizational management from Antioch University Los Angeles. In 2007 she premiered her first feature film, 3 Américas, which she wrote, directed and produced at the 2007 Woodstock Film Festival. The script was in the official script competition of the 25th Festival Internacional del Nuevo Cine Latinoamericano, Havana, under the title Soledad. The script was developed at the National Association of Latino Independent Producers' 2004 Latino Writers' Lab, the Independent Feature Project New York Directors' Lab and participated in the 2004 Sundance Institute's Independent Producers' Conference. It also was awarded 2004 and 2007 Moving Image Fund Grants from the LEF Foundation. 3 Américas was distributed by Vanguard Cinema and . Cristina Kotz Cornejo has made several short films including Despertar/Awaken, Hermanas, which premiered at the Morelia International Film Festival in the Mexican Short Film Competition, and Buena Fe. Her short film, The War That Never Was , was the only Argentine short to be selected by the Seattle International Film Festival in 2005 to screen in the Viva Argentina! Program. The War That Never Was has screened at over 25 festivals and venues in over 11 countries and is distributed by Ouat! Media of Toronto. Ernesto, which was commissioned by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America and premiered at the 2000 Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films, is distributed online by Cinedulce. Ocean Waves won the 2003 Award of Merit from the University Film and Video Association. Her thesis film, The Appointment, which was made under the advisement of Spike Lee while a student at NYU, was awarded the Warner Bros. Pictures Production Award, the NYU Craft Award for Musical Score by her brother Andy Kotz, and was picked up for distribution by Urban Entertainment after its premiere at NYU's 2000 First Run Film Festival. Jewel and the Catch, a 1993 short documentary on Jewel Thais-Williams, African American LGBTQ rights activist and owner of Jewel's Catch One Club in Los Angeles, was selected to be part of the UCLA Film Archives' Outfest Legacy Project Collection. Footage from Jewel and the Catch can be seen in the opening credit sequence of season 3 of Transparent by Jill Soloway. Cristina Kotz Cornejo is the granddaughter of Argentine guitarist/composer Agustin Cornejo, a descendant of the Huarpes of San Juan, who performed his compositions "La Chinita" and "Que Me Importa" with Carlos Gardel in the film The Tango on Broadway. Agustin Cornejo also appeared in Cuesta Abajo and El Dia Que Me Quieras, where he became mentor to then 11-year-old Ástor Piazzolla and friends with his father Nonino Piazzolla. The Gardel films for Paramount Pictures were directed by French filmmaker Louis J. Gasnier and John Reinhardt and shot at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in the 1930s in New York City. Kotz Cornejo became the first Latina full professor of film/media production in the US in 2014. She has taught at Emerson College in Boston since 2001. She is the recipient of the 2007-08 Mann Stearns Distinguished Faculty Award, a 2012 MacDowell Colony Fellowship, a 2013 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowship and a 2014 Cine Qua Non Screenwriters Fellow. In 2019, Cristina was awarded the American Spirit Award in Special Achievement in Educating New Filmmakers from the Caucus for Producers, Writers & Directors.
