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Lourdes Portillo Dies: Oscar-Nominated Filmmaker And Activist Was 80


The Mexican-born filmmaker combined activism with art.

Filmmaker Lourdes PortilloCourtesy of Antonio Scarlata Lourdes Portillo, the Mexican-born, Chicana-identified filmmaker who crafted nuanced film and video works that center the emotions and circumstances of diverse Latinx experiences, died on Saturday, April 20 at her home in San Francisco. The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures presented a 10-day major retrospective of Portillo’s work in 2023, highlighted by a screening of her 2001 documentary Missing Young Woman (Señorita Extraviada). Oscar-nominated for her documentary feature Las Madres – The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, “ Portillo’s works defy categorization, slipping easily between docu-fiction, experimental video, and the melodrama of telenovelas,” as described by the Academy Museum’s interim director, film program, K.J.

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