We were lucky to catch up with Sofia Forero Matheus recently and have shared our conversation below.

Sofia, appreciate you joining us today. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?

I have no regrets in life. The things that are meant to be for me will happen whenever they need to, and I don’t force situations to happen. But, and yes, there is a but, currently, my biggest and only regret in life is that I didn’t start my career as a filmmaker sooner.

I officially started as a filmmaker in 2021, attending film school at Columbia College Chicago while making videos and taking pictures on the side for fun. I started this path after studying medicine for two and a half years, which means I would have loved to start filmmaking back in 2016, right after graduating high school.
When I graduated from high school, I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere and did not know what to pursue as a professional path.

I felt pressure to choose a path instead of exploring my skills, likes, and interests and focusing on them professionally. So, six months after graduation, to follow in my parents’ footsteps because this field was familiar to me, I decided to apply and study medicine back in my home city, Bogotá.

Starting sooner would have given me the advantage of time to practice and improve my filmmaking skills from a younger age. It would have also allowed me to meet people in the industry from an early age and to do everything I am doing right now, but younger, having more experience today.
I would also have saved the money I spent on med school to use in film school. I would have saved myself from uncomfortable and difficult conversations with my family because I decided to leave med school for film school and travel to another country to do so.

It’s funny how life is because although I started my career in filmmaking in my twenties, from the age of 10 and even younger, art was in me; movies were my passion, my favorite thing in the world, and my comfort zone. I was always interested in knowing behind the scenes of a movie or series, and documentaries motivated me to be creative. Still, I needed to figure out in what sense to be creative. It was not until I took a random class at Med School about filmmaking that I opened my eyes, and I understood that following a path in filmmaking is possible, an arduous task, complicated but not impossible.

Now, after feeling regretful about not starting my filmmaking career sooner, I also see that doing it in 2021 fits perfectly into the conditions of my life, considering that 2020 was a rough year for all of us. 2021 was a good year for me to move to Chicago and take my classes in cinematography. Even in my last semester of university, I had the opportunity to do it in Los Angeles, a city I love and where I am now living.
And even starting later in life, having a creative background during my teenage years has helped me immensely to succeed today.
That’s how curious life is.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I’m Sofia Forero Matheus, I go by Sofie Matheus. I was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, and moved to Chicago in 2021 to attend Columbia College Chicago as a film and television student. I found a passion for filmmaking during my third year of Medical School back in Colombia. Unlike being in classes at a hospital, the creative filmmaking process I experienced during extracurricular classes inspired and challenged me uniquely. Thus, I decided to take a new direction in my life.
I decided to leave medical school to enter the world of cinema and, more specifically, to dedicate myself to cinematography starting in 2020.

I knew that if I wanted to go to film school, it would be in the United States, so I struggled to find a good college where I could learn from active professionals in the industry. I was also looking for a place that would help me get good network connections after graduation.
The year 2020 arrived, and what none of us expected to happen happened: a pandemic.
My plans to travel to Chicago were delayed a year, and between not being able to work and getting all the necessary documents, I thought it would be very difficult or almost impossible for me to travel.
Then, in September 2021, after doing an online semester, I got everything I needed to travel to Chicago once and for all and attend Columbia College Chicago, where I got my Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a major in Film and Television with a concentration in Cinematography.

Since September 2021, my life has not been the same. I mentally opened horizons that I did not expect to find before; I have met people from all over the world and different cultures and made friends from all over the world, and my knowledge about cinema, both in theory and in practice, increased immensely.
Thus, my skills in cinematography increased, becoming my specialty and what I will dedicate the rest of my life to.
I did my last semester of college in Los Angeles as part of the program Semester in LA that Columbia College Chicago offers. It opened many network and personal doors for me, so much so that I moved to this beautiful and incredible city. My last semester of school in Los Angeles allowed me to expand my network group and meet excellent, professional, creative, and amazing people to work with.

During this period, I also had the opportunity to intern at BeCine, a woman owned and operated boutique camera rental house located in Culver City. This place undoubtedly helped me learn and work with the best people I know in this city.
In May, I proudly graduated from Columbia College Chicago and embarked on a new chapter as a freelancer in a camera crew, serving as a second AC and camera utility. While fulfilling this roles are, this is just the beginning of my professional journey. My ultimate aspiration is to become a full time cinematographer and camera operator, a goal that I am determined to achieve within the esteemed Local 600 union.

I am a Filmmaker; more precisely, I am a Cinematographer. I seek to share authentic and fictional stories through motion pictures. I work hand in hand with directors, screenwriters, production designers, and more to translate words into storytelling images. To do so, I count on the help of the camera and lighting crew, who work hard during production days to do the final project properly. I aspire to be a full-time cinematographer as I continue building my portfolio and connections to reach that level. Currently, I work as a freelancer in union and non-union sets as a second assistant camera and camera utility.
My determination and persistence to follow my dreams and aspirations separate me from others. Without my dedication, I wouldn’t be here with you, telling you my story. Also, I care. I care about the stories I share, I care about creatives and their hard work, and I care about the people I work with.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

To avoid failure at all costs. When I was younger, with my family and all around me, failure was seen as a negative aspect of life that should be avoided at all costs. Life is for perfectionism and accuracy, or at least that is what I grew up thinking.
This meant that this belief limited my creativity, as I was afraid of failing at what I did, causing me not to create art in light of this fear. This belief also affected decision-making, as I feared that I would make the wrong decision and lead to failure. I did not act freely.

Now, I embrace failure, learn from it, and am not afraid to act because I learn from mistakes or failures. Something positive always comes out of the art I create. My creativity is now more unrestricted, and although it is never perfect, I love what I do and learn from every moment in my life, whether positive or negative.
By living, changing countries, and getting out of my comfort zone, I have learned to embrace failure and that there is nothing wrong with it. Realizing this, my life has changed for the better.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of creativity is that it is not monotonous. As a filmmaker, the world is my workplace; it changes constantly.
I get bored quickly of monotony, and following a strict work schedule in the same place unconsciously bores me. There are no surprises in that aspect, but having the opportunity to be creative means that work days are unequal.
Although the work hours are long, as a filmmaker, each day differs from the day before.
Also, the seventh art is super rewarding for me because it allows us to immerse ourselves in worlds different from this one, feel different emotions, and meet unique characters. Art is subjective and allows us to create unlimited things.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @sofiafm3
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sofia-f-matheus-
• Other: https://linktr.ee/sofia.fm