Ana de Lara

Ana de Lara is a Filipina-Canadian actor and stand-up comic turned screenwriter, director, and producer. Her award-winning short films have screened in festivals worldwide, most notably in the Academy-qualifying Montreal World Film Festival, Raindance Film Festival, Rhode Island International Film Festival, and The Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival, where she was presented the 2018 Spirit Award. Ana is developing her first feature screenplay and her feature film directorial debut, The Virgin Mary Had a Litlle Lamb, a comedy with magic realism about a Filipina-Canadian girl who loves the Virgin Mary, wants to be just like the Virgin Mary, and what happens to her when God actually answers her prayers. The script, based on Ana's one-woman play, won the 2016 Telefilm New Voices Award and earned Ana a 2017 BC Arts Council production grant. Ana is also preparing to direct the 2019 Telefilm Talent to Watch webseries, Best Friend Me, a comedy about depression, written by Andrea Swallow and produced by Arnold Lim. Ana has successfully tackled difficult issues with her eclectic storytelling style. Good Girls Don't, a comedy with magic realism about gender inequality won the 2016 MPPIA Award (production grant) at the Whistler Film Festival. Since it's release, the film has earned over a dozen awards, including the 2019 Matrix Award at the Vancouver Women in Film Festival, the 2018 Best Director Award at the Broad Humor Film Festival, and the 2019 Best Comedy and Best Screenplay Awards at the Asians on Film Festival. Near Silence, a drama bout euthanasia and suicide with integrated dance, was hailed as "striking and highly original" by Bill Brownstein in the Montreal Gazette, when it premiered at the 2010 Montreal World Film Festival. The film was a finalist for the 2010 Lindalee Tracey Award and won the 2011 Best Narrative Short Film Award at the Vancouver Women in Film Festival. In Control, a drama about domestic violence from a child's perspective, won the 2018 Making a Difference Best Children's Film Award at the Toronto Commffest Festival. First Winter Last, a visual poem about immigration and racism, with animation by Denver Jackson, won the 2008 Best Canadian Fiction at the CBC Migration International Film Competition. Although primarily a writer/director, Ana has also produced the BravoFact short film and the Telefilm Talent to Watch feature film of the same title, All-In Madonna, with director Arnold Lim and writer Susie Winters; as well as the feature film mockumentary Open for Submissions with writer/director Bryan Skinner and co-writer Stacey Ashworth.