Award-winning filmmaker Amy Serrano is presently at work on a book on New Orleans where she has lived since 2007. This is Who We Are: Lessons from New Orleans on Resilience, Reinvention and Sustainability is composed of observations, interviews, and portraits of individuals and organizations who in the aftermath of two human-made disasters, lost it all, yet survived tragedy, devastation and found ways to begin again and thrive in a Post-Katrina and Post-Oil Spill New Orleans.
Recently, she shot, produced, wrote, directed and launched the feature-length and critically acclaimed documentary, The Sugar Babies: The Plight of the Children of Agricultural Workers on the Sugar Industry of the Dominican Republic. Narrated by Edwidge Danticat and composed of field recordings coupled with outside testimony, the film explores the lives of the descendants of the first Africans delivered to the island of Hispaniola for the bittersweet commodity that once ruled the world. These very same people continue to be trafficked from Haiti to the Dominican Republic to work on sugar plantations under circumstances that can only be considered modern day slavery.
Amy also wrote, produced and directed the U.S. co-production for the feature length film Move! Produced in Rome, Italy and distributed throughout Film Festivals in Europe, Move! is a fiction film collection of short films by 11 filmmakers from six continents exploring the dispassionate state of humanity through varied human emotions. Her body of work includes directing and producing the PBS broadcast A Woman’s Place: Voices of Contemporary Hispanic-American Women, featuring Isabel Allende, Dr. Antonia Novello, Bianca Jagger, Maria Hinojosa, Esmeralda Santiago, Marjorie Agosin and other barrier breaking Hispanic-American Women. Ms. Serrano also produced the award-winning ?Adios Patria? The Cuban Exodus, narrated by Andy Garcia (Berlin Film Festival, Best Documentary New York Independent Film and Video Festival, PBS). She was executive producer of the PBS broadcast and Emmy-Award nominated Cafe con Leche: Voices of Exiles’ Children and associate producer of the Emmy-Award nominated Havana: Portrait of Yesteryear, narrated by Gloria Estefan for PBS.
Amy has received honors from the CITY OF MIAMI with a proclamation making October 27 “AMY SERRANO DAY”. Twice, she’s been named a “Woman of Today” in Glamour Magazine (Spanish Editions, August 2000 and August 2003). Glamour Magazine also named Ms. Serrano a “Woman of the Year” in their Millennium issue. During Women’s History Month, she was presented a Mentor Award by the Public School System and named a Distinguished Female Role Model by the Public Library System. She was also one of eight women profiled in a documentary entitled Evolution of Woman. This national, cutting-edge photographic exhibit was first unveiled at New York City’s Metropolitan Pavilion. In June of 2003, Ms. Serrano became a recipient of the TESORO AWARD in Art and Culture. In January of 2004, Amy Serrano was awarded a prestigious Fellowship with the National Hispana Leadership Institute [NHLI] which has involved Leadership Studies at Harvard University’s JFK School of Government, the Center for Creative Leadership, on Capitol Hill, and with various recognized leaders in social and civic change.
In July 2004, Ms. Serrano was named a “Latina of Excellence” in Hispanic Magazine’s Top Latinas Roster for 2004. In July of 2005, she was named one of fifteen top Young Hispanic Leaders in the United States by the Spanish Embassy in Washington DC and participated in a Diplomatic Exchange in Spain with their top leaders in the social, political, economic and cultural arenas. Towards the end of 2005, Amy was profiled in a book on Young Hispanic-American leaders in the United States published by the Spain-U.S. Council. In 2006, she was selected to be profiled in the Florida Hispanic Yearbook. In May of 2008, MEGA TV named her one of the “most influential and recognized Hispanics in the United States” and in October of 2009, she was selected as a “Mujer Vanidades” in Vanidades Magazine.
Amy is a featured guest lecturer at colleges, universities and cultural centers and was asked to join the Speakers Bureau of the United States Department of State. She was appointed President of the Spanish Embassy’s committee on Art and Culture in Washington D.C. as well as the Advisory Council of the Faulkner Society in New Orleans. She remains a committed Senior Fellow of the Human Rights Foundation in New York, a Fellow of the National Hispana Leadership Institute in Washington D.C. a Board Member of Voz de Mujer; a women’s empowerment and leadership organization based in Texas, and was recently appointed a Board Member to Ambassador Armando Valladares’ non-governmental organization, Human Rights for All.
A published poet, writer, essayist and speaker of 4 languages, she resides in New Orleans; an inspiring setting for her first book. . As Director of Amy Serrano, Creative Media | Communications | Consulting, she is concurrently engaged in performing consulting and commissioned projects for special clients, and travels to speak on human rights issues involving women, children, human trafficking and modern day slavery.