LA CORONA

AMANDA MICHELI & ISABEL VEGA
2008 (45 MIN)

Televised beauty pageants are extremely popular in Colombia, sometimes attracting even higher ratings than World Cup soccer. National and local pageants are often the centerpiece of cultural festivals, and little girls dream of being the queen of their village one day. But even in Colombia, a beauty pageant in prison is unusual.
The film follows four very different contestants as they vie for the title of prison beauty queen. As the competition nears and suspense builds, the women explain in their own words what brought each of them to this place and discuss the lives and loved ones they've left behind.

AMANDA MICHELI

Amanda is an Academy Award nominated filmmaker with over a decade of experience as both a director / producer and a cinematographer. Amanda directed, shot and edited her first film, Just for the Ride, a documentary about cowgirls on the women’s Pro Rodeo circuit. RIDE won an Academy Award and International Documentary Association Award in student categories and premiered on the prestigious PBS series "POV" in 1996. Her second film, Double Dare, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival and won the audience award for Best Documentary at the AFI FEST in Los Angeles and the San Francisco International Film Festival, among many others. It was broadcast on the PBS series “Independent Lens” in 2005 and had a limited theatrical and a broad DVD release.

In addition to directing her own projects, Amanda also collaborates with other filmmakers. She was a producer and the director of photography on Lauren Greenfield’s award-winning film Thin (HBO) and shot the premiere episode of Morgan Spurlock’s series, “30 Days”.

 

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