Laura Maria Isabel Ruiz Ocadiz

Laura Maria Isabel Ruiz Ocadiz was born in 1983 in Mexico City, in the cradle of a family of musicians. A fanatic of the seventh art, Mexican melodrama and classical literature, she developed her abilities in different artistic disciplines from an early age, including Acting for Musical Comedies at the Artestudio academy. Years later, she graduated with a Bachelor of Psychology (her thesis in the "Incidency of Nervous Anorexia and Bulimia in a group of female ballet dancers" was selected by the Tepeyac University Degree Department as the best of 2007). Being a film buff, she gained a certain popularity online as an amateur movie reviewer, years before the rise of modern social media. This was a milestone that led her to collaborate with the online magazine "F.I.L.M.E. Magazine", providing her cinematographic analysis of several works, and to be featured as a guest in National Polytechnic Institute Radio (Radio Instituto Politécnico Nacional). In 2010, she attained a scholarship from the General Society of Writers of Mexico (SOGEM), and upon finishing her studies in literature -while working as a member of the Neurological Center Research Department at the ABC Medical Center Hospital-, she contributed to the aforementioned institution's scientific magazine "Medical Annual" (Anales Médicos) while looking for a creative outlet. It was then when, in 2014, CONACULTA (today, the Mexican Ministry of Culture [Secretaría De Cultura]) selected her as the Art House and Auteur Film T.V. spot screenwriter for the Cinema 22 film block, at Channel 22 (Canal 22). Her artistic career naturally branched off into the making of the short films "Dreams & Realities" (Sueños y Realidades, 2016) and "The Gift" (El Regalo, 2015) -the latter being shot the same year she began her Film Directing education through a course personally instructed by Mexican filmmaker and actor Diego Luna-, both of which she wrote and directed, ultimately getting them screened in several National Festivals; particularly that of the National Cinematheque of Mexico (Cineteca Nacional De México), "Pantalla De Cristal". Maria then decided to take a more formal step at increasing her knowledge with a Master's Degree in Cinematography from Altrafílmica, which at the end she complemented -after being chosen for a scholarship by the editor, writer and director Juan Pablo Cortés ("Love Hurts" [Amar Te Duele, 2002]; "Luciana", 2010)- with the Film Editing course at the Center for Cinematographic Studies (CEC) in Mexico City. In 2018, she married actor, producer and film editor Roberto Eduardo Arenas Farquet, and enjoyed a well-deserved break from cinema that led her to publish three literary fiction novels: "Amnesty", (Amnistía, 2018), "Steve's Boater: Truth and life" (El Canotier De Steve: La Verdad y la Vida", 2020), and "A Wakefulness Of Indocility" (Un Desvelo De Indocilidad, 2021); the latter being adapted to film by Maria and and scheduled for release on the summer of 2023.