We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Paola Baldion a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Paola, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
I’ve found my purpose by trial and error. When I was a kid I knew that I wanted to be an artist. Both of my parents are artists and they introduced me to painting, sculpting, dancing and performing at a very young age. As a teenager I started working as an actress in a tv show in Colombia for a couple of years and after that I moved to New York and enrolled myself in acting classes, directing workshops and silk screening courses. I also got a Makeup Artist certificate and for a few years that’s how made a living. I enjoyed the Silk screening process of creating an image and transferring it into different objects. I also liked doing make up and specifically special effects make up as I was able to create diverse characters. What I learned from all these skills was that I liked the process of creating and telling a story through different mediums. So finally I realized that storytelling was my purpose and that cinema was my favorite form of expression.
Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?
In 2017 my husband Jamie Toll and I created a film production company called Dos Almas Films. Since then we have made a documentary (I Am Migration) a docuseries (For Alma) a virtual reality project (Virtual Borders) and our most recent film project: Abrazo. What all these projects have in common is that they all have a social commentary. My husband is from Australia and I’m from Colombia, both immigrated to this country 20 years ago and have raised a family in California. We are both artists, we are both immigrants and we both recognize that we have the advantage of being able to voice our concerns and points of view through art. So we felt that it was our responsibility to give a voice to other immigrants that haven’t had the opportunities Jamie and I have.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
What we have learned from our previous projects is that we need to tell stories that are close to our hearts. And that in order to bring them to completion we need to use all the resources we have available. For example our first project was a one minute video called #IamMigration where I embraced my dna roots by portraying my diverse ethnicities by wearing the specific clothes of each culture. This was shot on an iPhone in one day. I did prepare for 2 months prior to the shoot by researching and gathering all the necessary clothes. After a quick edit on my phone we uploaded the video on different social media platforms and in one week we went viral as we made 18 million views. This caught the attention of 3 dna companies and shortly we were founded by MyHeritage DNA to produce I Am Migration the documentary.
Also For Alma was entirely shot on our phones. In 2020 I became pregnant in the middle of a pandemic. Without being able to leave the house or have any sort of social life we decided to document my pregnancy journey in the midst of such chaotic times. We weren’t allowed to have a film crew because of the quarantine orders so we became the crew. Jamie and I did everything ourselves and only hired an editor a music composer and a graphic designer to help with the post production. We shot 9 episodes and uploaded them
to our YouTube channel for people to view.
So my advice is to focus on stories that really mean something to you and to bring them to life with anything you have at your disposal.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
Exactly a year ago I was pregnant with my second child Azúl and at that moment I knew that I had to capture such precious moment in an everlasting memory… so I started to think about a story to tell with the filmmaking tools I had available. I kept asking myself ‘what do I want to say? What story is worthy of being portrayed?’ As an immigrant to this country -with the privilege and capacity to voice my thoughts- I felt that it was my due to use my platform to talk about our current immigrant situation and its polarity. Where does this division comes from? Can we ever find a meeting point? Can humanity bring us back together? Suddenly I had this image of a pregnant immigrant woman crossing the US border and I knew that her story had to be told. I called my dear friend Ray Figueroa and shortly we began to write Luz’s story. Once we had a first draft of Abrazo I reached out to all my friends who work in film and to other talented peers whom I had worked with in the past and in January we shot Abrazo, a 17 minutes film. I was eighth months pregnant during the shoot and for the first time I felt completely empowered in my role as a filmmaker. Maybe it was the pregnancy life boost, or the fact that I was surrounded by people whom I trusted completely in their craft or a mix of both, but I was able to write, act, produce and direct Abrazo and never felt insecure or overwhelmed about it. I enjoyed the entire process from preproduction to postproduction.
Now I feel that I’ve acquired enough tools and confidence to direct a feature film 🙂
Contact Info:
- Website: www.dosalmasfilms.com
- Instagram: @paolabaldion @abrazofilm
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/iammigration?mibextid=LQQJ4d
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/@333bailarina?si=65LYVnuVDDim9TWa
- Other: https://www.facebook.com/paolabaldion?mibextid=LQQJ4d
Image Credits
Mariangela Quiroga, Arian Soheili
