Juan Escobedo

Juan Escobedo is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, actor, director and photographer. Working across film, photography, cardboard art, and ceramic sculpture, his practice centers on storytelling as a tool for cultural preservation, dialogue, and transformation. His work often draws from lived experience, folklore, and community engagement, exploring themes of memory, identity, and resilience. As a filmmaker, Escobedo creates socially engaged documentaries and narrative works that examine human vulnerability and collective healing. His sculptural practice—ranging from hand-built ceramic figures to cardboard constructions—extends these narratives into physical form, creating imagined characters and guardians that exist between the ancestral and the contemporary.

His recent film MARISOL has won several awards including “Best Dramatic Short Film” at the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival. MARISOL was also Oscar qualified and the script acquired by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Margaret Herrick Library for research.

Mr. Escobedo has a degree in Theater Arts with an emphasis on Directing from Cal State LA. He is the founder of The East LA Society of Film and Arts (TELASOFA) and the East LA Film Festival (ELAFF), dedicated to supporting underrepresented artists and expanding access to film and visual arts. Through a multidisciplinary approach, Escobedo bridges cinema, sculpture, and community-based practice into a unified artistic language.

Juan has received a fellowship from California Art Council Creative Corps through Community Partners to produce Las Promotoras de Salud Contra La Violencia (Community Health Workers Against Violence). For more information on the fellowship please visit Community Partners.

Juan Escobedo has recently developed a series of art work titled The Puppy Chulos or Los Puppy Chulos. The art conveys dog personalities with emotional human expressions and vibrant colors. The Puppy Chulos have been an immediate success selling before the paint is dry; he has received many requests from humans to immortalize their sentient Puppies.  The Puppy Chulos have been developed into short animation projects based on his art.