The Harvard Radcliffe Institute has announced its list of fellows for the 2022-2023 year, among them award-winning Paraguayan filmmaker Paz Encina. Encina’s selection to the 2022-2023 class marks the first time that a Radcliffe fellow has hailed from Paraguay. It is also the first year that a Peruvian has been selected, with linguist Roberto Zariquiey also joining the prestigious ranks of the fellowship program.
Now in its 22nd year, the Harvard Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program offers scholars and practitioners in the humanities, sciences, social sciences, and arts a rare opportunity to pursue their work in a vibrant interdisciplinary community. One of the world’s leading centers for interdisciplinary exploration, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University is dedicated to bringing students and fellows together to pursue curiosity-driven research, expand human understanding, and grapple with questions that demand insight from across disciplines.
A native of Asunción, Paraguay, Encina received a Master’s of Cinematography in 2001 at the Universidad del Cine of Buenos Aires. After directing several short films including La siesta (1997) and Los encantos de Jazmin (1998), Encina gained critical acclaim for her debut feature Hamaca paraguaya (2006), which won her the Un Certain Regard FIPRESCI Award at the Cannes Film Festival. Encina’s most recent film, EAMI (2022), which came after a documentary feature Exercises of Memory / Ejercicios de memoria (2016), was selected for the IFFR Tiger Competition. Encina’s work is poetic in form and in its approach to the history of Paraguay, existing at the edge of narrative and non-narrative. At the Radcliffe Institute, Encina will be developing an expanded script (a cinematographic script, an installation, a workbook or an artist’s book) for her work in progress El único tiempo / The Only Time.
