We were lucky to catch up with Mireia Vilanova recently and have shared our conversation below.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m a producer born in Barcelona and currently working in Los Angeles. I’ve always loved movies, even as a kid, and when I was old enough to realize that making films was a profession, I decided to pursue it – not a very realistic dream growing up in Spain! I soon realized that producing fit my personality perfectly, so I got an BA in Audiovisual Communication from Pompeu Fabra University. While in college, I had the opportunity to help out on a show, which then turned into two producing opportunities, producing the 6th season of the TV show “Quina Penya” and the 1st season of the show “+ Club”, both for Barça TV. While in school, I also had the chance to study abroad at UCLA and interned in the Emmy-winning documentary “The Beatles_ Eight Days a Week – The Touring Years”, a totally surreal experience. After I went back to Barcelona, I became a digital producer for the European Water Polo Championships, but I knew that I wanted to see how far I could go. That’s why I applied and receive the La Caixa Fellowship, which is a full time full ride scholarship awarded by the La Caixa Foundation in Spain, which allowed me to get my MFA in Producing from USC’s prestigious Peter Stark Producing Program. In Los Angeles, I started producing several independent shorts, which turned into bigger budget opportunities in television, film, music videos and digital content. In the shorts space, I have worked with Indeed on their Rising Voices Program, producing “100% USDA Certified Organic Homemade Tofu”, which did very well in the festival circuit and qualified for the Academy Awards, or more recently “Sorry Grandpa Hsiao”. I have also produced for Film Independent Project Involve and the Women in Film x Google Shorts Lab. In the features space, I just wrapped my first film, “I Live Here Now”, which will premiere next year, and in animation I have just produced several music videos for the VMAs as well as several digital series for Nickelodeon. It’s been quite a journey!

Mireia, appreciate you joining us today. What’s been the most meaningful project you’ve worked on?

As a producer, when I choose to work on independent projects, I feel like I must have a personal connection to it. Because to me producing comes from a place of passion, I feel emotionally connected to everything that I do – which is exhausting!

A project that is very meaningful to me because of the real-life impact it has had on veterans across the United States is the short film “Brainstorms”. Back in 2021, I was hired by director Julie Pacino to produce a short film that would also be used as a public service announcement for the non-profit organization The Resurrecting Lives Foundation, which helps veterans dealing with traumatic brain injuries. As someone from Europe, I have no connection to the military, the whole notion sounds very foreign and very American to me. But I do have an older brother who lives with a traumatic brain injury that he sustained as a child, so I was able to emphatize with the struggles that veterans face when they come back from service and find themselves without the tools to diagnose or treat their condition. The project was an exceptional experience to shoot, it was the highest budget I’ve worked with for a short and the longest shooting schedule – 6 days to shoot 30 scenes. Wrapping it was wonderful.

But the most beautiful part has been able to see how the project has been screened across the United States in front of veterans, who see themselves and this “invisible illness” as they call it reflected on screen. The Resurrecting Lives Foundation is still using this project for outreach and working with elected officials to make policy changes. As a filmmaker, seeing your projects have real life consequences is the best feeling in the world.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

Something people need to remember is that creative jobs are not hobbies or passions, they are careers and need to be compensated as such. I think this is a core issue in the current strike, a lot of people who do not work in the industry perceive making movies or television like a hobby, not a real job or just something that isn’t important to society and thus shouldn’t be properly compensated. And yet when the covid pandemic started, it was entertainment that helped most of us stay sane during a horrible time.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

Seeing the final result on the screen, whether that it a theater, a television set, a computer screen or a phone! And seeing how people react to it, how it touches them, how they connect to it on an emotional level. I’ve been lucky to be in the room during some of my screenings, and seeing people approach the team after screenings of “100% USDA Certified Organic Homemade Tofu”, “HARD”, or “Calabaza”, and say “I can see myself in those characters” is the best feeling in the world.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mireia.vilanova/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mireia-vilanova/

Image Credits
Carmen Carrazquez