Romina Paula is an Argentine artist (b. 1979) who thrives in diverse creative roles as playwright, film actor, theater director, filmmaker, and novelist. She studied dramaturgy at the Metropolitan School of Dramaturgical Arts (EMAD) in Buenos Aires and furthered her training with renowned Argentine playwrights and directors Alejandro Catalán, Ricardo Bartís and Pompeyo Audivert. Parallel to her theater training, she participated in writing workshops with the novelists Juan Martini and Anna Kazumi Stahl.
Her plays include Cimarrón (Rewilding, 2016), Fauna (2013), El tiempo todo entero (The Whole of Time, 2009), Algo de ruido hace (The Sound It Makes, 2008) and Si te sigo muero (If I Follow You, I’ll Die, 2005). Paula’s play Fauna follows Algo de ruido hace and El tiempo todo entero, all three of which she wrote and directed with the theater company, El Silencio, and published as a volume with the Argentine press Entropía. A volume of her best-known plays will be published in English translation in Fall 2022 by Seagull Press with the series In Performance, edited by Carol Martin.
She has received overwhelming praise and critical acclaim for her dramaturgical work in Argentina and abroad. Algo de ruido hace, based loosely on the short story “La intrusa” (The Intruder), by Jorge Luis Borges, participated in the theater festival Itinerarte and toured throughout Spain with premieres in San Sebastian, Santander, and Segovia. The play was also invited to participate in the Porto Alegre Festival in Brazil. El tiempo todo entero is an adaptation of Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie. In 2011 it took part in the prestigious Theatre du Rond Festival in Paris. In 2012 the play continued to tour as part of the Santiago a Mil festival in Chile and the Napoli Teatro Festival in Italy, and in 2013 it premiered in Aix-en-Provence, Arles, Pau, Toulouse, Montbéliard, Corsica, Montpellier, and Girona. Fauna has enjoyed a similar trajectory, touring internationally throughout Europe and Latin America and taking part in the Festival d’Automne in Paris in 2013.
In addition to her work as playwright, Paula has acted in films by some of Argentina’s most talented filmmakers. She appeared Medianeras (Sidewalls, 2011) by Gustavo Taretto; La princesa de Francia (The Princess of France), El hombre robado (The Stolen Man, 2007), Todos mienten (They All Lie, 2009) and Viola by Matías Piñeiro; and El Estudiante (The Student, 2011) by Santiago Mitre. In 2019 Paula made her debut as filmmaker with De Nuevo Otra Vez (Again Once Again), and in 2020 she co-wrote and directed the film Edición Ilimitada (Unlimited Edition) with Edgardo Cozarinsky, Santiago Loza and Virgina Cosin.
She has also written three novels, ¿Vos me querés a mí? (Do you Love Me? Entropía, 2005), Agosto (August, Entropía, 2009), Acá todavía (Still Here, 2016, Entropía), as well as several essays, and a collection of short stories, Archivos de Word (Word Archives, 2021). Her novel Agosto was translated into English by Jennifer Croft and was published by The Feminist Press at CUNY in 2017.