Paula Alvarez Vaccaro

Born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Paula Alvarez Vaccaro is an award winning producer, scriptwriter, journalist, and educator with more than twenty five years of experience working in film, TV, online, radio, and printed media in various languages and three continents. Some of her recent career highlights include winning at Venice Film Festival twice: in 2020 as a producer and writer of Listen, the most awarded film at the festival, winner of two Lions (Special Jury and Lion of the Future), and four independent awards including Hollywood Foreign Press Association Orizzonti, Best film by Independent Critics, and Best Social Impact film. The film was also selected as Portugal's representative for the 93rd Academy Awards (AMPAS) in 2021, and in 2016 the Young Golden Lion for her production On the Milky Road, directed by Emir Kusturica. Before founding her current company, Pinball London, in 2009, she had worked in films, series and shorts production for international companies and broadcasters such as BBC, TVE, MTV, Channel 4, and ARTE. Based in London, UK, Pinball London brings a multi-cultural and inter-sectional perspective to its powerful international work from celebrated directors such as Sally Potter (Ginger and Rosa), Emir Kusturica (Maradona by Kusturica; Words with Gods, On the Milky Road, Na mlijecnom putu TV Series), Guillermo Arriaga (Words with Gods), and with emerging talent such as Victoria Solano (Sumerce), Ana Rocha (Listen), Agustina Figueras (Bora Bora), Edoardo de Angelis (Mozzarella Stories), and Aaron Brookner (Uncle Howard). Under her leadership, Pinball London has won over thirty international awards and has created narrative and documentary features, series, animation, shorts and ancillary content for non traditional screens directed by filmmakers from over 15 different countries. Their films have launched at most A list festivals around the world and have been distributed in over 40 territories. She has produced and/or written narrative and documentary features, TV series, and animated and narrative shorts in co-productions with the US, Latin America, and Europe. Strongly interested in knowledge transfer and power sharing strategies, she collaborates within the industry as a mentor, speaker, educator, trainer, facilitator, and consultant on gender issues, Implicit Bias, and diversity and inclusion for a wide variety of organizations including EFM, ACE, Campus Latino, Documentary Campus, Eurimages, Voices of Culture, and the British Council. She is a Vice-President of the European Producers Club, and the first woman to achieve that role in the history of the organization. She was the work-group leader for their gender charter. Paula was an Emmy Juror between 2009 and 2014, an Official Jury at San Sebastian Film Festival in 2017; a Jury at Focal Awards for Archive Excellency 2010-2018, and a BIFA juror since 2018. She is a Sundance Alumna and one of the directors of ARTEF, the Anti-Racist task-force for European Film founded in 2020 by more than thirty institutions working in the film industry. She is also a member of the European Film Academy; a member and mentor of EWA, the European Women Audiovisual Network, and a full member of the Writers Guild of Great Britain. An invited professor at Kingston University 2015-2020, she received the prestigious Chevening Scholarship Award and holds a Masters in Media Arts from Royal Holloway, University of London. She is based in London, UK.