Loira Limbal
She // Her // Hers
[ID: A Black woman with a light brown complexion wears glasses and a turquoise blouse with dark-blue and orange accents. Her long hair is in silver braids that reach to her mid-back. She sits in front of a yellow background looking decisively at the camera.]
Portrait photo by Erin O’Brien.
Carolina, Puerto Rico
2023 USA Fellow
This award was generously supported by the Mellon Foundation.
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Loira Limbal is an award-winning Afro-Latinx filmmaker and DJ interested in the creation of art that is nuanced and revelatory for communities of color. Limbal’s most recent film, Through the Night, is a feature documentary about a 24-hour daycare center. Through the Night is a duPont Award winner, a New York Times Critics’ Pick, was selected for a world premiere at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival, and aired on PBS’s POV series in May 2021. She is an Open Society Foundations Soros Equality Fellow, a Sundance Institute Fellow, an NAACP Image Award nominee, and a Chicken & Egg Award recipient. Under the moniker of DJ Laylo, she creates spaces that celebrate and connect the musical dots of the African Diaspora. Her unrelenting commitment to good music and rocking the crowd have earned her a reputation for creating a house party vibe in the fanciest of venues. She is a founding member of the popular Brooklyn monthly #APartyCalledRosiePerez and has held residencies at many premier nightclubs from Berlin to Brazil. She is the former Senior Vice President of Programs at Firelight Media. She received a BA in History from Brown University and is a graduate of the Third World Newsreel’s Film and Video Production Training Program. Limbal lives in Puerto Rico with her two children.