Light Memories - ذكريات الضوء
78 minutes | Ecuador, Germany | 2024
Award-winning photographer Misha Vallejo goes on a deeply personal journey, using his late grandfather’s camera to recreate a lost family album. This search bridges a gap to a man he never met while confronting the absence of family photographs and the stories they might have told. Through intimate moments with his grandmother, Misha delves into themes of paternal absence, racism, and social discrimination, uncovering hidden family secrets and reclaiming spaces once denied to his loved ones. His lens captures both the pain of violence and the fluidity of memory, offering hope for connection and healing. Light Memories is a meditation on the power of photography, the resilience of family, and the possibility of reclaiming what was once lost.
Director’s Biography: Misha Vallejo Prut
He is an audiovisual artist and storyteller whose work blurs the line between documentary and art. His projects explore glocal issues: themes that appear local but reveal global dimensions through his lens. With an MA in Documentary Photography from the University of the Arts London, Misha is the author of acclaimed photobooks Al otro lado(2016), Siete punto Ocho(2018), and Secreto Sarayaku(2020), each recognized with international awards. His interactive documentary, secretsarayaku.net, has drawn over 20,000 visitors since its release in 2020.Misha’s photography has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, VICE, GEO, Ster, and Marie Claire, among others. His exhibitions have traveled globally, with recent shows at the Biennial for Contemporary Photography (Germany, 2022), PHOTO 2022 Festival (Australia, 2022), Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles (France, 2018), and the First Latin American Foto Festival at the Bronx Documentary Center in New York (2018).Among other honors, he has received the Dom Phillips grant from the Pulitzer Center (2023), the IDFABertha Fund (2020), Prince Claus Fund grant for Cultural & Artistic Responses to the Environmental Crisis(2018), the Photo Europe Network Prize (2018), and the NationalArts Prize Mariano Aguilera (2015). His debut documentary Light Memories / Eco de Luz was selected for the International Competition at IDFA2024 and nominated for Best First Feature Film. He has participated in film workshops, including LABED(Barcelona, 2024), IDFAcademy, and IDFA Project Space (Amsterdam, 2023). Misha is currently based in Ecuador, where he continues to develop new audiovisual projects