Rising Stars: Meet Eliana Cordova of Los Angeles, CA

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eliana Cordova

Hi Eliana, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Well, I discovered I love acting almost before finishing high school. Before that, the idea of being an artist wasn’t in my head at all. After finishing high school, I got a scholarship to study Theater in the best university of my country. However, during my time in university, I discovered I really love theater, but I was really in love with filmmaking. I didn’t know anything about it, but I knew and felt that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I wanted to quit university but I was so close to graduating that I just decided to finish it for the BA degree. Meanwhile, during the pandemic, I started taking courses and shooting stuff with my brother. With that, I confirmed my passion was acting and directing. As soon as I finished university, I moved out to LA to study Method Acting at The Lee Strasberg Theater & Film Institute. My time there was awesome, all the training definitely transformed my acting and empowered me as a person and artist. After finishing my training there, I started doing different projects, but also producing my first short film, studying filmmaking with a scholarship at both CIBEF (Mexico) and The Sundance Institute (USA). Nowadays, I keep working as an actress, finishing writing my second short film and preparing myself to apply for a MFA in Filmmaking.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
Definitely not haha. I think as a young person, I’m still in the process of discovering myself and figuring out life in general, and that process is messy, full of ups and downs. I think the hardest part is making decisions you know you won’t regret; and of course there’s a lot of uncertainty within that. Especially in this business, things can change from one day to the next. You really never know, and that of course, brings anxiety.

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 a Peruvian artist and a very multitasking person. Until now, I’ve had the opportunity to act in film, theatre and musical theatre, write, direct, produce, teach, sing, and coach; and I think that gives me a lot of versatility in my career. But I think the project I’m the most proud of is my first short film One Minute of Unconsciousness. It’s a bilingual Peruvian-American production that was shooted in LA with a crew and cast mainly of Latinx immigrants. Latinx representation and mental health stories are so important today, and this Peruvian-American production is one of them. A raw and emotional story of identity, mental health and immigration that I’m sure everyone can relate to in many different ways.
This project was born from the need to show what’s behind the American dream for a young Latina immigrant. The sociopolitical and economic context of Latin America is very unstable lately, and that causes the American dream for young people nowadays it’s different than before. In that sense, the goals and aspirations are different; but the challenge is the same. When someone migrates, it’s as if you were born again, it’s like starting from scratch in a totally foreign and unknown world. Far from family and friends, from that primary circle that sustains us; far from our culture, from that which forged our identity and gives us a sense of belonging; far from comfort, from the known and the predictable, from that security that we feel in our daily lives in our place of origin.
Our capacity for adaptation as human beings is infinite, but the fact of migrating puts us in a position of survival in solitude. It confronts us with our identity, with our strengths and weaknesses, with the deepest part of our being, and leads us to the question: is all this worth it? Is it worth risking everything to accomplish a dream? How do I stay true to myself in a world where I don’t belong but that gives me the possibility of achieving what I want so much?
OMOU is a reflection of the challenges that immigrants face daily when migrating and the active struggle to overcome them. Identity, mental health and migration are the axes of this story, but from a Latin point of view. Like the title, One minute of unconsciousness to reconnect with ourselves and recognize what makes us unique and authentic.
It’s been a long journey since I started the project in 2023, full of ups and downs. Fortunately, my brother Sebastian (@cordova41) joined the team as a co-writer and co-producer; and he became my partner in crime in this whole adventure that has become very special to us. Also, the whole team we worked with was very moved by the story, too; so that made the whole creative process richer.
We started our festival journey just a couple of months ago, and we’re all very happy with all the accolades and recognitions we’ve been receiving in different international film festivals. We’ve had a couple of online screenings, but our official in-person screening will be next year in both countries of production, Peru and the U.S. If you want to stay tuned, you can follow us here: @omou.shortfilm

What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
To fight battle by battle, each at a time. Sometimes we want to do everything all at once because of this feeling that we’re always late. I think especially, when we ‘re young and we start feeling we’re getting older, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves and everything becomes overwhelming. We just stop enjoying the process. So, I’ve learned that it is important to be present, and like in acting, just go moment by moment, breathing, feeling and reacting as authentic as we can.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/elianarcr
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elianacordova/
• Other: Short film One Minute of Unconsciousness: https://linktr.ee/omoushortfilm