As a reporter, documentary filmmaker and advocate, Chelo has worked for close to two decades exposing stories of sexual exploitation and trafficking. Born in Spain, she worked in Japan in documentaries for NHK Enterprises and became Tokyo’s and then Los Angeles’ correspondent for Spain’s El Mundo daily. In 1995, she moved to California and in 2002, Canal+ Spain turned her first reportage on child trafficking in the Himalayas into the documentary film Tin Girls. Chelo produced/directed several short documentaries, among them, Sold in America: A Modern-Day Tale of Sex Slavery, and, most recently, she coproduced Through The Wall, a short documentary about a family divided by the US/Mexico border, screened at DOC NYC, won the 2106 Imagen Awards. Her first feature-length documentary Sands of Silence: Waves of Courage, has won multiple awards, such as First Prize and Biznaga de Plata Asserting Women's Rights at the Malaga Film Festival, the Southern California Best Documentary Feature award by the L.A. Press Club, TheWIFTS Best Documentary Humanitarian Award, several Best Documentary and Audience awards from Malibu and Los Angeles to Guayaquil and Rio de Janeiro; was nominated as Best Documentary Feature to the Imagen Awards (the Latino "Golden Globes) and received the "Fada" (fairy) Cultural Award, second prize in Barcelona. Chelo is currently producing/directing “SOS_SLAVES,” a social impact video game and “SOS Interactive,” a micro-documentary series on sexual exploitation and trafficking.
