Director Biography - Elizabeth Francisco

A jack of all trades on Curaçao; you can find Elizabeth producing, casting, or art directing on both local and international productions. Even though heart, lies in screenwriting and directing, she recently expanded into producing as one of the five 2023 fellows from the New Producers Academy, where her mission is to provide a platform for impactful stories from the (Dutch) Caribbean. Her layered writing is all about real life issues such as colorism, generational trauma, migration, magical realism or mental health, to name a few.

She is one of the top 15 finalists in Netflix’s New Voices Scriptwriting Competition (2021) - and has written and directed a number of award winning short films. Her latest, Sin Ayó, traveled to 8 film festivals across the Caribbean and North America. Elizabeth won the CINEFAM award (Caribbean Tales Film Festival in Canada) in 2018 and took the Short Movies Big Stories (CIFFR) prize in 2015. She is a proud alumna of Rose Stories' Generation Inclusion 2022 program and the recipient of the Nederlands
Filmfonds' Cypher Cinema grant for her upcoming short film, Roba Alma, which is currently in post-production and receiving ongoing support from the Filmfonds. She is currently in development of her first feature screenplay: Ami ta Kòrsou; she had the opportunity to present her project during the Nederlands Film Festival last fall
together with the film project’s producers. Elizabeth is excited to expand her career into film producing, while continuing to explore other areas of the industry. Her vision is to bring a diverse range of stories, particularly those from the Dutch Caribbean, to the forefront of Dutch cinema and showcase the rich cultural tapestry of the region.