Who is Lorena Guzman

She was born in the temperate valley region of Cochabamba, Bolivia, and raised in a post-colonial Amazonian city, Santa Cruz de la Sierra.

Santa Cruz brims with lush vegetation housing macaws, monkeys, sloths, piranhas and jaguars.

The Power of Language-

By the age of 12 she had lived in 3 countries including Peru & Australia. Spanish is her mother tongue yet five languages have danced their way through her speech. Five cultures have given her the keys to understanding the sensibility of people’s lives and distinctiveness of their passions – Spanish, English, Portuguese, Italian and French, with smatterings of the local indigenous Bolivian languages Guarani, Quechua, Aymara.

“Through language, the curiosity to explore worlds unlike my own was born.” LG

The Power of Communication-

Lorena’s passion for documenting life’s experiences in words or images, started very early in childhood. Writing letters and journalling were as instinctively compulsive as breathing. The prospect of owning a camera, became an obsession from her 8th birthday onward -having to wait 3 more years to receive a much treasured Kodak Disc camera.

Due to so much travel, she realised that the value of captured moments through words or images, increased over time. Memory was totally unreliable when those around you were a whole new group of people, culture or race.

Witnessing the extremes of realities of the 3rd world and then contrasting a life experience in the 1st world, is surreal and catapulted an early sense of global awareness and social conscience.  Her father was instrumental toward making the family develop what became an innate cultural sensitivity when living amongst those with different in customs. This  cultural fraternity has remained with her to this day.

The seeds of such diverse, intense experiences, led Lorena to study Media Communications at RMIT in Melbourne. Whilst studying the masters of cinema, she fell in love with French cinema and culture.  Godard and Rohmer being her favourite directors. She doubted there could be anything better than the cinema verite style of the French new wave.

The Power of Freedom-

17 years later, it would then be her self awareness and actualisation after visiting France that would lead her to end her marriage of 14 years and start life again from the ground up with her 4 children, alone.  The unfolding of which was very much like a French film itself. Many tough lessons are learnt this way. But the emancipation from a domestic situation that was less than favourable was not something she ever regrets.

Life as a single mother was easier in some ways than as a submissive controlled wife because she discovered the true meaning of Freedom. That connected her powerfully to a strength and ability to rise above insurmountable circumstances.

The Power of Peace-

By having sons she’s evaluated the gender imbalance in society from a different perspective, that of a woman, mother who must guide her boys against the grain of machismo. She has seen how the challenges are present for both genders to consciously reduce all traces of aggression in their speech, manners, actions and attitudes.

Establishing a culture of respect, non violence, dignity and positivity begins at home. All family members have a powerful role to play. This value is one she sets about implementing in her home successfully.

Raising sons that will be an asset to society, respect women’s rights and freedom, fills Lorena with pride.  Doing so without emasculating them and strengthening their self confidence is also important to her.

The Power of a Dream-

Through thought provoking conversations she started sharing the experiences she’d had in France which led directly to her own self empowerment as a woman and mother. These lessons weren’t anything like what she sees being promoted in  Australian culture. She saw how many other women could benefit from implementing certain key factors , integral to French mentality which had healed, and transformed her.

She gradually started forming a vision of how to reach out to others and decided to produce a documentary.

“I want to document life based on what I saw was happening at a grass roots level in the lives of so many women around me. Unearthing the real condition of women in Australia, and the truth of who the Parisian woman is beyond the predictable cliches. To appreciate the light, one must also look to the shadows, fearlessly.” LG

And so it is that a woman born at 3000 mt above sea level, who was nestled first in the Andes region and given life with the purest oxygen of the Amazon, has found her way to the Australia, to uncover the missing link in the lives of women and stumbling upon it in France.

Working toward this dream has taken the support of many people who understand her vision. It’s taken time and many sacrifices. No easy task whilst also raising 4 sons. Yet every step toward its fulfilment has been worth the effort.  She continues travelling on this road.. looking forward to where it leads… maybe like a typical French movie, with no defined end.. or one that will resolve strongly once on the screen.

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