Giselle Marie Muñoz

Giselle Marie Muñoz was born to Colombian parents in Southern California. She was raised in a family of artists and at a young age began to take dance lessons. She spent her childhood and adolescence dancing and performing at The Dodger's Stadium, KLOS's Mark and Brian Thanksgiving Parade, The Anaheim Pond and The L.A. Coliseum. Giselle was named a Top Ten Dancer with Dance USA her senior year of high school. She went on to play with choreography, costuming and photography and taught ballet, lyrical and jazz dance to kids. She was part of the educational touring dance company based out of Orange Coast College called Danc'n Etc where they performed at various high schools to educate students on social justice issues. After attending college at various campuses she graduated from California State University, Fullerton where she earned a BA in Communications with an emphasis on Entertainment Studies and minored in Comparative Religion. Giselle spent the summer after college graduation in Costa Rica to aide in environmental conservation. When she returned home she soon married artist Kevin Muñoz and they had a child before moving to Austin, Texas. After many years of being a stay-at-home mother, she was invited to attend the Tom Todoroff Acting Conservatory in New York City. After two years of living an almost unreal double life she returned home to her family in Austin to work as a theatre actor and film producer with Maenad Films where they re-imagine female roles in a vintage style with an attempt to express, celebrate and renew the enormous spectrum of female archetypes formerly misrepresented by Hollywood. Giselle is Co-Director of Austin Arthouse Film Festival - spotlighting work from filmmakers across the world who defy conventions and tropes, who champion art over mass appeal and whose work challenges audience expectation. Celebrating the work of artists by sharing their films in a city that embraces and triumphs originality, creativity and the strange. The Austin Arthouse Film Festival takes place annually in the fall at Richard Linklater's esteemed AFS Cinema. You can catch Giselle as La Virgen de Guadalupe in Raul Garza's There and Back in a city near you in 2019.