Las Muertes Más Bellas del Mundo
About the Film
Las Muertes Más Bellas del Mundo/The Most Beautiful Deaths in the World tells the story of five artists whose families fled El Salvador’s civil war in the 1980’s, landed in the nation’s capital, and created art out of war. The film follows a poet’s journey to find answers and healing through his writing of Las Muertes and interweaves the portraits of Salvadoran-Wachintonian artists, including a dancer, photographer, and musicians. Their voices and archival images tell a compelling, intimate, and historically-grounded story of a community resolving trauma and finding identity, salvation, and joy. The film’s themes are both timeless and timely for the moment we are in - war, trauma, and the power of art and community as tools for healing, liberation, and social change. The film speaks to those whose parents or grandparents fled war and survived by silence, leaving the next generation to navigate the shattered pieces of their family’s lives. At a time when the business of war is thriving, immigrant communities around the country are living in fear, and El Salvador and its mega-prisons are much in the news as deportations rise, this film provides important historical context, connecting today’s social and political issues with the past.
Directors: Quique Aviles, Ellie Walton
Producer: The Yellow House Collective
United States, El Salvador // 2024 // Documentary, Experimental // Los Features
70 minutes
About the Filmmaker
Quique Aviles is a community scholar, film producer/director, teacher, poet, and performer. Originally from El Salvador, he has been leading arts projects in the Washington DC area for more than 40 years. A graduate of Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Quique has dedicated his life to documenting the stories of everyday people – dishwashers, city builders, nannies, street vendors – mostly from immigrant, Black, and poor communities and bringing them to life through poetry, performance, and film. In 2023, he was selected to be part of the inaugural cohort of HumanitiesDC’s Independent Practitioner Fellowship. He has toured his solo performance work of more than 15+ one-person shows around the country. Quique’s poetry and commentary have been featured on NPR’s Latino USA and This I Believe, and in the anthologies How I Learned English, Al Pie de la Casa Blanca, and The Wandering Song, an anthology of Central American writers in the U.S. His most recent projects are La Manplesa (a documentary about the 1991 Mt. Pleasant riots), and Las Muertes Mas Bellas Del Mundo/The Most Beautiful Deaths in the World (a documentary film celebrating the Salvadorean diaspora in Washington, DC through the eyes of Salvadoran artists.)
Born and raised in Washington DC, Ellie Walton is committed to honoring stories of everyday revolutionaries. Through a blend of observational and cinematic visuals, Ellie co-creates documentaries through deep collaboration, authenticity, and visual poetry. She is an ongoing collaborator with D.C. based production companies, Meridian Hill Pictures and Unchained Stories. Her award-winning feature films include WALK WITH ME (2012), FLY BY LIGHT (2014), BRAVE GIRLS (2018), and LA MANPLESA: AN UPRISING REMEMBERED (2021), which have screened at festivals across the country and broadcast on the PBS’ America ReFramed. Ellie first picked up a video camera when she was 11 years old to film her older sister’s act of civil disobedience at a skating rink, as the Lesbian Avengers held hands during couples time. Ellie kept rolling as the police stormed in and then handed the tape to the TV crew outside, who screened it that night on the local news. Ever since, Ellie has been committed to honoring stories of everyday revolutionaries, through the beauty and honesty of cinematic portraits. Ellie’s career has been focused on a participatory approach to filmmaking where both authorship and ownership are shared. She is an ongoing collaborator with D.C. based production companies, Meridian Hill Pictures and Unchained Stories.
