Salt the Fields
United States, 25 mins, Digital
Two best friends dream of escaping a world that offers them little choice. When offered to enroll in a birth control program, the choices they make threaten to destroy their futures. Inspired by real and illegal events in 1950s Puerto Rico.
Director: Zoé Salicrup Junco
Writer: Zoé Salicrup Junco, Lauren Lopez de Victoria
Producer: Quetzalí Lopez
Director of Photography: Praveen Elankumaran
Editor: Zoé Salicrup Junco
Production Designer: Jolien Louis
Composer: Brian Morales
Cast: María Coral Otero Soto, Natasha Lopez, Lauren Sowa, Dianalis Torres
Contact: Quetzali Lopez, qpl2000@columbia.edu
Program A
Friday, May 15, 7 PM
About the Writer/Director
Born and raised in Puerto Rico, Zoé is an award-winning director, writer, and producer. A graduate of NYU Tisch (BFA, Film & TV) and Columbia University (MFA, Screenwriting & Directing), she crafts stories that defy Latino clichés, replace tropes with truth, and reimagine characters with purpose and emotional weight. Her short film Marisol won the HuffPost Social Impact Award and was acquired by HBO, with other narrative work screening at Tribeca, Palm Springs, Clermont-Ferrand, Urbanworld, and the HBO NY Latino Film Festival.
About the Writer
Lauren Lopez De Victoria is a former agent trainee in film finance atUTA. A Sundance Producing Fellow, Sundance Catalyst Fellow and PGA Debra Hill Grant recipient. Prior to film, she worked in Corporate Finance for a large-multinational corporation where she managed teams across the US and Latin America. She holds a BS in Chemical Engineering, and an MFA in Film Production from Columbia University. Born and raised in San Juan, Puerto Rico, she currently works as a Development and Production executive at Borderless Pictures, where she’s worked on shows such as Swarm and Them from development through post and helps manage the company’s film and television slate for Amazon MGM Studios.
About the Producer
A Chicago girl at heart, Quetzali attended Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in both Film Production and Latino/a Studies. During her time there, she studied in Bonn, Germany, where she directed a short documentary in Berlin and assisted on projects shot in Frankfurt and the Netherlands. She has since moved to New York City to pursue an MFA in Creative Producing at Columbia University. As an artist, she focuses on culturally driven narratives that are interwoven with themes about intersectional identity. Her liberal arts background fuels her passion for representing marginalized communities on screen with complexity, nuance, beauty and respect.
