Mexican-American filmmaker Natalia Almada was announced the winner of the Directing Award U.S. Documentary at the 2021 edition of the Sundance Film Festival for her latest film Users. This marks the second time that Almada wins the award, after she received it in 2009 for her documentary film El General.
In her latest film, director Natalia Almada captures the ruthless locomotion of technology and offers a striking visual essay to explore the unintended and often dehumanizing consequences of our society's embedded belief that technological progress will lead to the betterment of humanity. Users is a critical and reflective meditation on these questions, using cinematic language that evokes the body and nature to counter the myth of technological progress.
Recipient of the 2012 MacArthur “Genius” Award, Almada’s work straddles the boundaries of documentary, fiction, and experimental film. Her previous film Everything Els is a narrative feature starring Academy Award-nominated Adriana Barraza; it premiered at the New York Film Festival and was nominated for a Mexican Academy Award. El Velador premiered at the 2011 Cannes Directors’ Fortnight and broadcast on the award-winning PBS program POV, along with her other two feature documentaries Al otro lado and El General.
Almada’s short film All Water Has a Perfect Memory premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and received the Best Documentary Short award at the Tribeca Film Festival. Almada has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, USA Artists, The Herb Alpert Foundation, and MacDowell Colony. Almada graduated with a Masters of Fine Arts in photography from the Rhode Island School of Design and currently lives between Mexico City and San Francisco.
