Laura Priale: Growing up as a creatively encouraged kid in Lima, Peru

Laura Priale exemplifies the exquisite mesh between body movement and cinematic art. Her work as a filmmaker and artist is one of few that manages to transform the visual media into something that enthralls all the senses. During this interview, and being able to see her work more closely, it became clear that Priale’s message through her art is something that will transcend a whole new genre for young filmmakers.

Growing up as a creatively encouraged kid in Lima, Peru – she fell in love with art through dance and performance. Though her school didn’t offer many creative classes, she always found ways to make art on her own. “I loved technology. I was good at it — even coding,” she says. But what truly anchored her creative expression before discovering film was dance. “Before film happened in my life, it manifested as dance,” she explains. She always found herself more inclined to producing pieces of choreography and shows to entertain her peers and family. She recalls her brothers were not very creative but her sister was a performer as well – together they would put on shows and make movies. In the latter years of this growing love for dance and music, she was given an iPad – and this unknowingly became her first steps into filmmaking.

Even though dance became her first language of storytelling — a way to express emotions and ideas through movement rather than dialogue. “It opened my eyes to see the world through a performative lens,” she says. She talked about how she really pays attention to the human body and its movements – adding that the body can express more about one’s emotion more than the body ever could. Her filmmaking strives to explore the concept of the body’s unspoken language in ways that dialogue never could; “The body says infinite things.”

Throughout the interview, she began to reflect about the technical aspects of filmmaking that most speak to her – while she enjoys directing, she is also interested in what the camera can and cannot see. She sees the world in angles and motions, creating a big love for cinematography.

Laura’s films transcend what is seen as worldbuilding and storytelling into a completely different realm of consciousness that submerges you with all of your senses to the universe that she is creating on screen.