Loretta van der Horst Rodriguez

Loretta is a Dutch-Puerto Rican Emmy nominated filmmaker focusing on human stories about people in extraordinary situations, be they  political, social, psychological or otherwise. Her debut feature documentary Behind the Blood, a film that portrays the struggles of three individuals dealing with gang and police violence in her birth country Honduras, premiered at IDFA 2019 and won the award for best International Documentary at the HUMAN film festival Oslo 2020.  Loretta is currently working on her second feature documentary, this time set on the U.S. - Mexico border. She is also co-directing an international feature doc about individuals taking big oil companies to court in fighting climate change. Her first short film Sound of Vision (2013, PBS POV) was nominated for an Emmy, as was her first documentary as a line producer Huesos que Hablan (Discovery Channel, 2014).  Loretta holds an M.A. from NYU's Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute where she focused on documentary filmmaking. After graduating she started reporting about human rights and social issues including the drug industry in the favela’s of Rio de Janeiro, animal trafficking in the Amazon jungle and forensic investigations into disappearances on the US-Mexico border.  Loretta also holds an M.A. in Conflict Studies and Human Rights from the University of Utrecht. Loretta is also co-founder of the Netflix supported New Producers Academy, which is an 18 month fellowship programme for emerging film producers from underrepresented communities.