Iliana is a filmmaker based in Austin, Texas and Mexico City. She was born and raised in El Paso, Texas by Mexican immigrant parents. A former Bill Gates Millennium Scholar, she holds an MFA in film production and directing from UCLA. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Steven Bochco Fellowship, the Hollywood Foreign Press Award, the Edie and Lew Wasserman Fellowship and the National Hispanic Foundation of the Arts Scholarship, among others. Her MFA thesis film, Child of the Desert, won Best Short Film and the Texas Award at the Oscar qualifying 2012 USA Film Festival. In 2018, she was selected as a Berlinale Talent and most recently co-directed a short documentary, An Uncertain Future, with Chelsea Hernandez. The short has screened at the 2018 SXSW Film Festival and won a Jury Award for Best Texas Short. It has also screened at the 2018 Aspen ShortsFest where it won the Youth Jury Award.