[Watch the video interview on YouTube here]
Film Courage: What is a marionette theater?
Paola Baldión, Filmmaker/Actor: A marionette theater. Okay. My father, when I was 3 years old, he created a marionette theater.
Marionettes are like puppets but they have strings. They’re made out of wood. He used to carve them. He still does. He’s got like about 100 marionettes. He is literally Geppetto.
Film Courage: Wow. Okay. Similar to let’s say the Bob Baker Marionette Theater here in Los Angeles, CA.
Paola: Very similar.
Film Courage: I love it. I’m fascinated and in awe of this.
You grew up in Italy, right? You were born in Paris.
Paola: I was born in Paris. When I was 3 years old, we moved to Italy and that’s where I grew up until I was 10, 11.
Film Courage: How did the marionette theater come about?
Paola: When I was about two, my father met this German woman that used to have her own marionette and she taught him how to make a marionette. He learned and sure enough, he loved the skill and he kept making more and more.
Then he made enough to have its own theater, like his portable theater.
Still to this day he takes it out in the streets of Florence and he busks for a living.
Film Courage: Street performance in Europe is much more accepted, right, than it is here in the States?
Paola: Yes. I don’t know. You still need to have a permit. You still need to do steps in order to do it, but everybody kind of does it.
Film Courage: I love that. Did your parents design all of the puppets?
Paola: Yes, they did. He carves them by hand.
Film Courage: How many puppets can you remember today from that time?
Paola: I would say maybe about 20. Yeah, he still has some of those…(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’
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WATCH ‘ABRAZO’ – NEW SHORT FILM BY PAOLA
CONNECT WITH PAOLA BALDION
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