Fina Torres

Fina Torres (born October 7, 1951) is a Venezuelan film director and screenwriter. She became internationally recognized by winning the la Caméra d'Or award at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival with her directorial debut film, Oriana. Torres is perhaps best known for her work in Oriana and her collaboration with actress Patricia Velásquez in the lesbian drama, Liz in September (2014). She is considered to have unusual prominence as a Latin American film director as she moves from place to place to seek financing for her projects. She currently lives in Venezuela.

Fina Torres was born Caracas, Venezuela, as Josefini Torres Beneditti. She studied design, photography, and journalism and at the age of 17 became a photojournalist. She enrolled at the Neumann institute for Design in 1970 as a graphics design student and eventually also took social communication at Andrés Bello Catholic University. In 1974, she moved to Paris where she would earn a bachelor's degree in cinematography from the Institut des hautes études cinématographiques and spend the next 28 years of her life in the film industry. After Paris, she lived in the United States, Mexico, Singapore, and eventually returned to Venezuela, where she currently resides.

During her time in France, Torres worked as a photographer, camera operator, editor, and a film script supervisor. In 1980, Torres served as trainee assistant director to Nadine Trintignant on Premier Voyage (1979) She co-wrote a script with Catherine Philippe-Gérard, for which she secured production funds from both France's Arion Productions and Venezuela's state funding agency, FONCINE (Fondo de Fomento Cinematográfico de Venezuela). The result would be Torres' first film, Oriana, for which she won the la Caméra d'Or award at the Cannes Film Festival. It was described by critic Vincent Camby in The New York Times as a "Gothic Romance" This made her one out of only two Venezuelans to receive awards at the festival, the other being film director Margot Benacerraf.

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