Valeria Contreras is an award-winning filmmaker from the U.S.-Mexico border. Through her company, Apis Mellifera Productions, she develops global film projects by combining creative development with strategic partnerships, fundraising, community engagement, and cross-sector collaboration. She is a Film Independent Producing Lab Fellow and Fast Track Fellow, PGA Create Fellow, NALIP Director Incubator Fellow, and Cine Qua Non Fellow.
Her directorial work includes Homesick, a short film about two lovers separated by the pandemic and the border, which screened at the Oscar-qualifying Atlanta Film Festival. Her upcoming short film, Oranges, was selected for the NALIP Director Incubator, sponsored by Netflix, and serves as a proof-of-concept for her feature screenplay of the same name, further developed through the El Paso Community Foundation Border Art Residency and Cine Qua Non. As a producer, Contreras has championed numerous award-winning short films that have screened at festivals internationally including Not My Name, recipient of the Focus Features Award for Social and Cultural Impact and Wings, part of the Tyler Perry Studios Dream Collective.
Contreras holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BA from the University of Chicago. She is an Assistant Professor of Practice in Communication at the University of Texas at El Paso.