Eva Karene Romero left a career in academia to search for a new path that would allow her to make an impact on her community and the world in a way that made sense to her.

Never imagining she had what it would take to be a film director, she used the skills she had acquired in academia and partnered with a director in Paraguay to make a documentary film about gender violence in her native country.

This is her story in her own words (edited for space and flow).

I got to a point in my career in academia where I felt like I didn’t have a future there. It was hard for me for a long time to figure out how my skills would transfer to something else, to what end, and what would make me happy. I wasn’t sure about the exact outcome that I wanted.

I dreamed of being a filmmaker but I never thought that would happen. I didn’t have the knowledge, I didn’t have the resources. I didn’t feel like I had the connections. I was like, maybe in some next life, or way in the future, I will be able to take a lot of time or money and put it towards a documentary film making course, workshop or degree.

You know, I didn’t need any of that. I didn’t need something so huge to learn. I’ve learned a lot by doing. I think what is killing us creatively is that we can’t move from the planning stage to the doing stage. 

The idea for Kuña started when I was writing my PhD dissertation about Paraguayan film. I became friends with a Paraguayan film director who was really intrigued by gender stuff but he didn’t really have a handle on the issue or an entry point. We got the idea that it would be cool if we directed a documentary together.

Fingers crossed, the film will be done this year.

Follow Eva’s story about Kuña on Facebook.