Daily Inspiration: Meet Fany de la Chica

Today we’d like to introduce you to Fany de la Chica.

Hi Fany, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I started to make films at the age of seventeen and I didn’t stop since then. I’m not sure why I started making films I think I wanted to express myself and I fell in love with cinema. I got where I’m now, thanks to scholarships and passion. Sometimes is hard to be an artist and make a living out of it but if you stay focused and surround yourself with people that love you, it’s possible to keep creating. At the moment I have a short film “Last Night at Paris Blues” that I filmed in Harlem that I will premiere in November at the European Film Festival of Seville, a tv series that have been supported by BBVA bank fund and the Spanish Authors Society and a feature film in development between Spain and the US called “Al Alba”.

I’m also a singer and I always wanted to sing but I was insecure and I didn’t believe in myself. Now, I’m working on my second album with the grammy nominated music producer Ali Stone who is one of the few female Latin producers in the United States. I’m releasing the first single of this album 4th of November. In the past I had the support of LIFEWTR, they selected me for the campaign #lifeunseen which supports underrepresented artists in the United States.

Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I come from a very humble family. My mum is a cleaner and my father a welder. I was obligated to emigrate from Spain during the financial crisis when my father lost his job. I emigrated first to London as many of the young Spaniards did. We used to share rooms and work as waitresses or cleaners even do we were the most prepared-educated generation in Spain ever. I worked in so many things, sometimes I used to take the food the supermarket used to deposit outside, and it was almost expired. But after a few years of struggling, I got the opportunity to work in an agency as a director of the video department.

This opportunity didn’t come out of the blue, for years I was making films and documentaries independently and this experience was so valuable for this company at this time. In London, I suffered discrimination for being a woman and secondly for being Spanish. I arrived in the country without speaking any English. But I survived. I became stronger and financially stable and as I had the dream to move to the United States I applied for five years for the scholarship that I finally got to study for my MFA in film at Columbia University of New York. If you are a good person and believe in yourself, work hard and stay focused, you will finally get where you deserve to be.

Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My work has benefited from my cultural roots, I’m originally from Andalusia, (Spain). My films delve into themes related to family; belonging to a community, breaking traditions and questioning self-identity, and fighting a patriarchal society. I empower women with my films, I advocate for gender equality and my stories are told from a female point of view and with a woman or girl as the protagonist. I portray the female universe and my stories come from my personal feelings or experiences.

My ultimate goal is to move the audience and for this reason, I put my heart into my films and music. I think the fact of being fi filmmaker and flamenco singer can be unique because my films in the end benefit a lot from my singer/artist stories and my music from my cinematographic approach.

I’m very proud of my first music album “Dressed for a Sunday” and my last two films “Something to Believe in” which won an Emmy at the College Emmy Awards and was premiered and the Academy and selected for Telluride.

And “Last Night at Paris Blues” will premiere in November and is a proof of concept of my film in development “Al Alba”. I’m also proud of the documentaries which I made when I was very young and almost by myself. I had the opportunity to broadcast them on television. You can see my work on my website – https://www.fanydelachica.co.uk/

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
Hard-working, original, unique, and passionate.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.fanydelachica.co.uk/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fanydelachica/?hl=en
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/delachicafany/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/FanydelaChica
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1R14C8SefmDIurvVZM3vOw
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/fanydelachica
• Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/6nUqCp3g8GDyJwMX3q9SqB