documentary photographer & filmmaker

SARA ESCOBAR

She is a Mexican documentary photographer and filmmaker focused on identity, social justice, human rights, and efforts against violence in Latin America. For her, images are an opportunity to discover other realities and a mirror to understand herself. She strongly believes in collective work and that we should honor the trust we have received by returning the projects to the place and communities where they were born.

She is a VII Academy 2022 Fellow and a FotoFeminas, Women Photograph and The Journal collective member. She has a Communication Sciences Degree and a Documentary Cinema Master Degree (UNAM). She was part of the International Photojournalism Workshop at Institute Jose Marti in La Habana Cuba in 2007 and of the Contemporary Photography at the Image Center in 2013.

She founded next to Pablo Ramos Tortugas al Viento , an independent crew where they have produced and photographed feature movies, short films, news and storytelling videos published worldwide. From 2005 to 2012, she worked as a camerawoman for Milenio TV, FremantleMedia, Canalseisdejulio and the Chamber of Deputies, and as a photojournalist for Milenio.

Her first documentary film "To Enlist" received the Jose Rovirosa Student Award in 2014 and the Young Collective Medium Length Award at Santiago Alvarez in Memoriam Festival (Cuba) in 2015. She received the National Geographic Covid-19 grant for developing the first chapter of the Pandemic Babies project and she received with Tortugas al Viento’s collective the Co-investment grant for multimedia project Here sun dawns later.

Her photographic work has been collectively exhibited in different parts of the world: 2019. Mexico City. Desde nosotras, 2017. EUA. Enamorados de la Mujer Barbuda. Ciudad de México. Fotografía Contemporánea,  2016. Chile. Sin título, ca. Programa cultural Tierra Adentro, 2015. México. Todo por ver, 2010-2011. México. La ciudad y sus quinceañeras.

She believes in this profession you never stop learning and it’s all about sharing, the reason why she gets involved in educational programs whenever she can. She is currently working as an Audiovisual Aesthetics and Narrative teacher at Sciences Communication Degree in the National Autonomous Mexican University and collaborates with cinematography and photography workshops in different schools and institutions.