Meet Ximena Uribe of New York

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ximena Uribe

Hi Ximena, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I was born and raised in Guatemala City, Guatemala. I grew up loving cameras and movies thinking that they were unachievable magical worlds that just existed.

I never knew that actual people were the ones creating these worlds I loved so much. Watching ‘Stranger Things’, seeing kids my age immersed in this parallel universe, made me horribly jealous. YouTube became my friend when interviews with these kids came out, talking about their auditions and the process. Then something clicked, I understood this is something you can do. That’s when I decided I wanted to create those worlds and be a part of them.

I looked for acting classes in Guatemala only to find a limited amount of teachers and people that knew a way in. After taking the leap to go in for classes I found a world I thought to be impossible. It was like being a kid again and playing pretend therefore completely falling in love with the art form. Two years later, after taking countless acting classes, doing many short films and starring in three feature films in Guatemala, I decided I wanted to go to the place where my favorite actors came from; New York City. I ended up applying to many conservatory programs there. I ended up going to The American Musical and Dramatic Academy.

That takes me to today, where I have starred in five different short films, one Indie feature film, graduated the New York AMDA Conservatory Program, written many short films of my own and won Quarterfinalist at the Screenplay Contest of the Art of Brooklyn Film Festival.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
As an international artist in the US I’ve found different struggles. Adapting to a new culture, pace, even freedom has been a learning curve.

One of the biggest struggles I’ve found along the way is bringing my art to life in a second language. This is something I didn’t foresee when I decided to move to the US. After creating for two years non-stop in Guatemala, I found my voice and I felt so sure about my point of view over there that when I came to New York I found that shifted due to my surrounding and the new information I was consuming. Coming to New York pushed me to restart that process and that absolutely moved my world.

I’ve found that as an artist your art and your point of view dies many deaths. Being at peace with starting over and over again has been extremely hard, but equally as rewarding.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m an actress and filmmaker. I’m known for creating stories I want to tell as an actress and bringing them to life with the point of view of a filmmaker. I strongly believe that as an actor you can’t find peace waiting for the right role to land on your lap, so I have decided to create those stories and roles for myself and those that surround me.

What sets me apart is the various influences that affect what I create. I love to draw cartoons and I want my films to look like excerpts from a graphic novel from Daniel Clowes. Being Latin American, I grew up reading writers like Gabriel García Márquez whom explore magical realism, which is the literary genre I like to explore in my own writing.

How do you think about luck?
Luck is a tricky subject as a creator. Many think opportunities take luck, but I believe work ethic and talent are a more accurate reason as to why a creator is working or not. Chance feels like a better description for those things that happen in a person’s career that feels magical. I think many of the people I love to collaborate with, nowadays, I have found them by chance. The chance of us meeting was so slight it feels magical that we even get to know each others names.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ximenauribev/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUMTPHseUYsqgC_FXPbvHMw

Image Credits
Pictures by Max Olivieri, Riley Ater, Vibeography Photography, Jeremy Thompson, Carlos León.