[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: When you made the short video for I Am Migration, did you have any idea that you were going to make a documentary later on? Was that part of the plan?
Paola Baldión, Filmmaker/Actor: No. For me, that was it. I was just hoping to engage with other people and maybe make them curious about where they came from. But I never thought I was going to make a documentary. That wasn’t really in the plans.
We had an idea. We’re very creative, my husband and I. We thought like, maybe we could do this, maybe we could do that. But there was nothing really solid.
Film Courage: So this whole whirlwind, you take the DNA test, you become inspired and emboldened, there are things you want to say and then you have this thing become viral. At what point is the documentary on the table?
Paola: A few months later. I want to say two months later. We had like four DNA companies that reached out to me on social media and they said, “We loved your work. How can we sponsor you to do the next project?”
Out of all of them, I chose one of them, Heritage DNA, because they were giving me complete free will to do as I please, to tell the stories that I please, and they offered me 400 DNA tests for free to give to the people, plus all the funding.
So, I was like, “These people are great.” We went with them.
Film Courage: Did they sponsor the RV as well?
Paola: Yes, they sponsored the whole trip.
Film Courage: And just to backtrack for a second, I understand you took more than one DNA test?
Paola: Yes, because I wanted to test the water. So, I took I think with four different companies just to see and they were all very similar.
Maybe there was like one or two percent of differences, but they were all very similar.
Film Courage: Yeah. I know one company that I took one with…(Watch the video interview on YouTube here).
About:
Paola Baldión is an award-winning actress, director, and producer of Colombian and European heritage. Born in Paris and raised in Italy and Colombia, Paola is a multilingual Latina artist fluent in Spanish, English, Italian, and French. She began performing at age four in her parents’ marionette theater and later trained under renowned masters Edgardo Román and Paco Barrero in Bogotá, followed by HB Studios in New York and Stephanie Feury Studio in Los Angeles. She holds a BFA in Theater and Film Studies from Concordia University in Montreal.
Paola made her feature film debut in the lead role of Marina in Retratos en un Mar de Mentiras (Portraits in a Sea of Lies), which premiered at the Berlin and Guadalajara film festivals. Her performance earned her the Colombian Academy Award for Best Actress, along with Best Actress honors at the Guadalajara and Amiens International Film Festivals.
As co-founder of Dos Almas Films, she has directed impactful short films and documentaries, including For Alma and I Am Migration-a documentary where she and partner Jamie Toll travel across the U.S., offering free DNA tests to explore ancestry and identity.
Her latest fiction film, Abrazo, tells the emotional story of a pregnant Central American woman crossing the U.S. border. The film has received 29 festival awards, including Best Film, Best Director, Best Writer, and Best Actress. Through her body of work, Paola continues to champion stories about identity, migration, and social justice-bringing visibility to underrepresented voices in both dramatic and comedic roles.
WATCH ‘I AM MIGRATION’
Facebook.com/iammigration/videos
WATCH ‘ABRAZO’ – NEW SHORT FILM BY PAOLA
CONNECT WITH PAOLA BALDION
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New book from Film Courage! – See it on Payhip here
