Filmmaker and author Cecilia Araneda was born in Chile and left for Canada at a young age with her family after they escaped Chile’s bloody coup d’etat. She grew up in northern Manitoba and currently lives in Winnipeg. Araneda has completed nine short films that have won awards and screened in festivals, curated programs and art house cinemas internationally – including in New York, Chicago, Paris, Madrid, Leeds, Cologne, Santiago, Montevideo, Toronto and Montreal. In 2010, Araneda’s work was featured in a retrospective screening at the Canadian Film Institute in Ottawa, Canada. Her first novel, The Ocean, was released December 2012. Araneda holds a BFA (hons) in Theatre (playwriting) from York University and an MFA in Creative Writing (screenwriting) from UBC, and is additionally an alumna of the fabled Film Farm. In 2011, Araneda was recognized by the Province of Manitoba for her work as a woman artist working for social change.