MARLÉN VIÑAYO

(Spain, 1987)

Award-winning documentary film director, screenwriter and producer. Her films have won 38 international awards at prestigious film festivals and have been selected at over 150 festivals in more than 30 countries. In recognition of her work, she was awarded as the international recipient of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Gold Fellowship for Women in 2025.

Her latest documentary film UNFORGIVABLE received 28 international awards, including six Oscar-qualifying awards, which made it the first Salvadoran film qualified to compete for an Oscar. It was awarded as Best International Short Documentary at IDFA (NL), Hot Docs (CAN), Slamdance (USA), Guanajuato Film Festival (MX), Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival (USA), MDOC Film Festival (PT), Menorca Doc Fest (ESP), Discover Film Festival (UK) and POY Latam, among others. It also won the Best of the Festival Award at Palm Springs Shortfest (USA), the largest short film festival in North America. It was nominee by the International Documentary Association at IDA Awards as one of the 10 best short films of 2020 and was official selection at Telluride Film Festival, AFI Docs, Atlanta Film Festival or Denver Film Festival, among many others.

Her feature debut, CACHADA: THE OPPORTUNITY world-premiered at SXSW Film Festival 2019 (US), where it won the Audience Award in the Global category. Since then, it has received numerous awards, including the Latitud Award at DocsBarcelona (SP), Best Feature Documentary Award at San Diego Latino Film Festival (US), Audience Award at Rencontres du Cinèma Latino-americain du Bourdeaux (FR) and Cinelatino Tubiengen (DE) and Best Feature Documentary at Ícaro Film Festival (GUA), among others. It was shortlisted at Platino Awards 2020 in two categories and was selected at more than 80 international film festivals as Göteborg Film Festival (SE), Yamagata International Documentary Film Festival (JPN), DocPoint Helsinki (FI), Hot Springs Documentary Film Festival or Heartland Film Festival (US).

In 2021 Marlén won the Gabo Award in the Image Category, the Ibero-American Filmmaker of the Year Award at POY Latam (Pictures of the Year Latin America) and Best Director at Aguilar Film Fest for “Unforgivable”. In 2019 she was nominated for an Emmy Award for her work as producer on the Peabody Award Winner documentary SEPARATED: CHILDREN AT THE BORDER (PBS Frontline); and that year she also received the Best Filmmaker Award at OUFF, granted by the Spanish Association of Women Filmmakers and Media (CIMA), for “Cachada: The Opportunity”. 

On the television side, Marlén was director of the series BLANCA, OSCURA NEGATIVA: THE CASE OF CRISTINA QUINTANILLA (Canal 33, El Salvador) and local producer on the Dupont Columbia Gold Baton winner THE GANG CRACKDOWN (PBS Frontline) and on the documentary TARGETING EL PASO (PBS Frontline).

For the last 14 years she has worked for film and TV companies and media outlets in USA, Spain, Honduras and El Salvador, including PBS Frontline, BBC, CCTV Americas Now, Noticias Telemundo, Mediapro and El Faro; and has been a Jury member of the Gabo Award, Sebastopol Documentary Film Festival, Guanajuato International Film Festival and the Platino Awards.  

She has a degree in Audiovisual Communication at Carlos III University (Madrid) and holds a Master´s in Documentary Filmmaking at ESCAC (Barcelona). Her professional career is closely linked to El Salvador, where she lived for the last 12 years and founded her production company La Jaula Abierta. Currently she resides in Mexico City and is working on her second feature-length documentary.

FESTIVALS & AWARDS

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