Kristina Valada-Viars
As a director: long-time collaborative partner Steven Strafford’s Small Jokes About Monsters premiered at 16th Street Theatre, Invitation Song (Phyl) a narrative short with DP Christopher Rejano, written by Coburn Goss and featuring Peggy Roeder and Francis Guinan among a 13 person credited cast and production crew of 18, was filmed in an active community church on Chicago’s Northwest side and features collaborators from her work in Chicago theatre, television and film. She serves as the transmission director and coach for Reach+You, an augmented reality interactive performance and conversation created, developed, and hosted by Katrina and Jonah Goldsaito with additional support provided by a Transformative Public Art Grant from the City of Boston Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture. Her self-produced mini-short, A Different Time, was a selection for the Experimental Short Program at WickedQueer (2021, Boston).
As a writer: Her short screenplay 2 Spruce Street was an official selection of the Scario Film Festival. Her narrative podcast teleplay, Jane: 1891, about Jane Addam’s Hull House, assimilation, and the opening of the Butler Art Gallery, was commissioned by Make Believe Association where she is currently a member of a seven-person writing team for a new serial narrative podcast alongside Natalie Moore, Nate Marshall, Sydney Charles, Laura Acalá Baker, Mikhail Fiksel and Jeremy McCarter.
The first film in her passion project, Where Could We Go: A Map Of Finding Home (a collection of six short films co-created with her partner in life and creativity Echaka Agba exploring the meaning of Home through an aspiration of Black and Queer Liberation), was an official selection for Afrikana Independent Film Festival (US Premiere) and BlackX in 2021 and received a grant from The Derek Freese Film Foundation. Through a collaboration with video artist Marco G. Ferrari and the V. Ferrari Foundation The Root/The Bloom (Coordinates 1&2) from this collection were screened as a part of the 12th annual LOGOS Festival, a community based multidisciplinary arts festival supporting the community green space and protected natural monument Lago Bullicante at the historic Nuovo Cinema Aquila in the Pigneto neighborhood of Rome, Italy. www.