Felipe Terán, an Ecuadorian filmmaker, actor, professor and programmer, died on April 5 of undisclosed causes at the age of 54 in Quito. He was an esteemed figure of the Ecuadorean film community, having worked in different capacities in the local cinema.
Born in Quito on July 3, 1967, he received an MFA in Film Directing at the Russian State University of Cinematography (VGIK), the world's oldest film school founded in 1919. In 1996 he starred in the role of the Author in Camilo Luzuriaga’s acclaimed film Between Marx and a Naked Woman / Entre Marx y una mujer desnuda, which tells the story of an author who gets lost between the book he is writing and the reality and a love that does not exist and the ideals of revolution.
Years later, Terán worked as assistant director in Sebastián Cordero's acclaimed debut feature Crónicas. The Ecuadorean thriller starring John Leguizamo, Leonor Watling, Damián Alcázar, and José María Yazpik was co-produced by Mexican filmmakers Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro, and Bertha Navarro.
In 2007, Terán premiered his debut documentary feature ¡Mete gol, gana! Shot in the middle of a dry and desolate landscape of the Andes, the film follows the stories of Afro-Ecuadorean children who dream of becoming professional soccer players, as their only way out of poverty, following the footsteps of Ulises de la Cruz, the professional soccer player who plays in Ecuador’s national team.
In 2008, he worked in the programming team of the Encuentros del Otro Cine (EDOC) Film Festival, and for several years, he taught Screenplay writing and Documentary filmmaking at the San Francisco de Quito University, where he instructed numerous emerging filmmakers.
