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Emilia: An Untold Cuban-American Story: Producer/Director

documentary screening

Luis Perez-Tolon

Luis Perez-Tolon is an award-winning TV producer/director and visual anthropologist.  His career has spanned three continents and he has developed international co-productions for Discovery Networks; PBS; Canal + (Spain); Canal 22 (México); Canal 13 (Argentina); ARTE and France 3 among others. 

He began his filmmaking career at the Berkeley Film Institute where he produced his first 16mm independent short, L'Esprit (1979), “Best of the San Antonio Cinefestival” and  “Emerging Film Artists” San Francisco Bay Area Filmmakers Showcase, 1981. He was one of the founding members of Cine Acción, the organization of San Francisco Bay Area Latino filmmakers and worked with Ray Telles at  KQED. His award-winning independent documentary Exilio/Exile (1985) was broadcast on New York’s WNET-Independent Focus and distributed to PBS stations nationwide. 

In 1988, after attending the visual anthropology film program at USC in Los Angeles and making Gypsies Today, about a Gypsy family in Granada (Spain), he moved to Europe where he worked on anthropological documentaries for the Center for Ethnological Research in Granada. His productions there include Gypsies of the Sacromonte, La Monda (sugar cane harvest in the Mediterranean) and La Virgen del Martirio (patron saint of the Alpujarras mountains). He was founding director of the Sevilla (Spain) office of the European Union’s MEDIA Program for audiovisual development, and the representative in Spain for the European Documentary Network-EDN (Denmark).

In 1998 he produced with Café Productions of London the international mini-series, 1898: The Cuban-Spanish-American War, for Canal + (Spain), TLC (USA), History Channel (UK) and Discovery Channel Latin America.  Following he became Director of Production with Discovery Networks Latin America/Iberia. He then served as executive producer for regional productions from Latin America, Spain and Portugal. His credits include: Paranal: Eye on the Universe, (with Ray Telles) gold medal NY Film Festival 2001; Jorge Luis Borges: El Hombre Espejo (2000 France/Argentina/USA), and Manuela Saenz, la pasión de Bolivar (2001, Colombia/USA) bronze medals at the same festival.

His recent works include: U.S. Dept. of Education STEM series for Miami Dade College; coordinating producer, American Comandante for PBS American Experience; and  Emilia, a personal narrative about the story of the Cuban flag and his ancestor, Emilia Teurbe Tolón (Cuba's Betsy Ross).  He is now developing a film about a coach in Miami who works with students with disabilities and a film about his family’s exile from Cuba and the first visit since leaving in 1960. Born in Cuba, Luis migrated with his family to the US in 1960.  Luis holds a BA from the University of Florida and an MA from the University of Southern California in Film-Broadcasting-Anthropology. He lives in Miami Beach, Florida and makes films through his company, Emilia Productions, LLC.