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Giselle Bonilla is The Next AFI Conservatory Audi Fellowship Recipient

In their continued commitment to expanding opportunities for women in the film industry, AFI and Audi announced today that Giselle Bonilla (Directing Fellow, AFI Class of 2023) has been named as the latest recipient of the Audi Fellowship for Women scholarship. Launched in 2017, the Audi Fellowship program selects one promising female director to receive a full-tuition scholarship for the two year MFA program. Bonilla will begin her training at the AFI Conservatory in August 2021.

Bonilla graduated with Honors from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts with a BFA in Film & Television Production. Her thesis film, “Virgencita,” received the Adrienne Shelly Grant, Panavision New Filmmakers Grant, and won the Horizon Award at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. In 2020, she was selected as a Sundance Ignite x Adobe Fellow, where she adapted her short film to an original pilot and is currently a Deutsche Bank Frieze Filmmaking Fellow.

Bonilla is the third filmmaker to receive the scholarship. The first recipient, Natalie Camou, graduated from AFI in June 2019, and second Fellow, Nicole Mejia, will graduate in 2021.

Audi has been a supporter of AFI programs for the past 17 years.