Talent Guide

Èlia Gasull Balada

  • Discipline:Director, Editor, Writer
  • Program Year:Documentary Story Lab 2026

Bio

Èlia Gasull Balada is a NAACP Image Award-nominated filmmaker. She has extensively worked as an editor and writer for documentaries and narrative films. Her most recent credits include The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks (Tribeca 2022), which won a Peabody Award and a Gracie Award and received a Television Academy Honor, the Emmy and Peabody nominee The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show (Tribeca 2021) and the Emmy and Grammy nominee The King (Cannes 2017). On the narrative side, she edited Son of Monarchs, winner of the Alfred P. Sloan Feature Film Prize at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs is her directorial debut.

Current Project

The Hummingbird Paints Fragrant Songs

Logline

After a lifetime of hardship, 75-year-old Indigenous artist Sara Flores emerges from the Peruvian Amazon into the global contemporary art scene. As she confronts the emotional and physical toll that comes with being in the spotlight, she defies the lure of material wealth and transforms her art and legacy into a force for the territorial and cultural resistance of the Shipibo Nation.