Violeta Ayala is a filmmaker, technologist, writer, and artist. In 2020, she became the first Quechua member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. She is the co-founder of unitednotions.film and koa.xyz. Her most recent project is Prison X (2021), an interactive VR animation, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and Cannes XR to critical acclaim. She wrote, directed and produced the award-winning documentaries Cocaine Prison (2017), The Fight (2017), The Bolivian Case (2015) and Stolen (2009) — Her films have premiered at major film festivals, including Sundance and Toronto, broadcasted on PBS, Channel 8, Señal Colombia, Ibermedia, World, and online platforms such as Amazon Prime and The Guardian. She has won over 50 awards and nominations including a Walkley (Australia’s Pulitzer) and nominations for the IDA (Los Angeles), Rory Peck (London), Platino (Panama) and Fenix (Mexico). Ayala’s art works include Flower Queans (a book of 3D-printed flowers and poems powered by artificial intelligence), koa.xyz (A everchanging interactive website powered by IA), a metaverse gallery in cryptovoxels (winner of the overall honorable mention at the Indigenous Futurism Model-Making Competition of Yale’s center for architecture), Ephemera (an online zine where she writes about futurism).

VIOLETA AYALA

DIRECTOR