Juan Paulo Laserna Arias
- Writer
- Director
- Producer
Juan Paulo Laserna is an award-winning Colombian screenwriter, director and producer whose stories often utilize magical realism and dark humor to develop contemporary dramas and crime narratives related to immigration.
He received his BFA with honors from School of Visual Arts, where he directed his first feature film, Las Malas Lenguas, which screened at several festivals, had a strong theatrical run in Colombia and was later acquired by Starz. He attained an MFA with honors at Columbia University on writing for television, where was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Screenplay Competition Award for his story Wuasikamas, which centered on the indigenous rehabilitation of the land during the war in Colombia, as well as the Katharina Otto Bernstein Mentorship Prize for his thesis film, Not My Name.
He is a NALIP Emerging Content Scholar, a Film Independent Screenwriting Fellow, a Cine Qua Non Screenwriting Fellow and a recipient of the Focus Features Award for Social and Cultural Impact. In 2024 he completed working as the Director's Assistant on the Netflix series "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and is in the financing stage of his next feature film, Not My Name, which has gained the support of the Film Independent Producing Lab and the Producers Guild of America Create Lab.
He worked in development with Academy Award winning producer Molly Asher in her production company, The Population, and in 2025 began working as Head of Development for Alex Garcia Lopez's Amalobo Productions.
He received his BFA with honors from School of Visual Arts, where he directed his first feature film, Las Malas Lenguas, which screened at several festivals, had a strong theatrical run in Colombia and was later acquired by Starz. He attained an MFA with honors at Columbia University on writing for television, where was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Screenplay Competition Award for his story Wuasikamas, which centered on the indigenous rehabilitation of the land during the war in Colombia, as well as the Katharina Otto Bernstein Mentorship Prize for his thesis film, Not My Name.
He is a NALIP Emerging Content Scholar, a Film Independent Screenwriting Fellow, a Cine Qua Non Screenwriting Fellow and a recipient of the Focus Features Award for Social and Cultural Impact. In 2024 he completed working as the Director's Assistant on the Netflix series "One Hundred Years of Solitude" and is in the financing stage of his next feature film, Not My Name, which has gained the support of the Film Independent Producing Lab and the Producers Guild of America Create Lab.
He worked in development with Academy Award winning producer Molly Asher in her production company, The Population, and in 2025 began working as Head of Development for Alex Garcia Lopez's Amalobo Productions.
