VIANCA ILIANA FUSTER

Vianca Iliana Fuster is a Puerto Rican documentary filmmaker from Milwaukee's South Side. She has directed, shot, and edited a catalogue of original documentary-style work for local and national media outlets, including 88Nine Radio Milwaukee, NBC’s TODAY Show and AJ+. Vianca co-founded LionArt Media, a woman-owned and operated video production company with the goal of creating more work opportunities for women and BIPOC filmmakers in Milwaukee. 

Fuster recently directed, produced, shot, and edited her first short documentary The Warrior Princess. The Warrior Princess is a short documentary about Violet 'The Warrior Princess' Lopez, a 13-year-old, five-time amateur national boxing champion who believes boxing shouldn’t be labeled as just a "boys sport.” Violet is a barrier-breaking boxer looking to one day etch her name in the women's sports history books by winning a gold medal at the 2024 Olympics, becoming a professional fighter, and inspiring growth in the sport of girls amateur boxing. The film was a recipient of the 2019 BRICO Forward Fund and was selected to be workshopped through Kartemquin Films' 2020 Diverse Voices In Documentary Fellowship in Chicago, IL. 

A shorter version of the film aired on NBC’s online streaming platform TODAY All Day as part of a series called The Upside: Power of Sports. This piece debuted immediately following the 2020 Olympics. The full short premiered at the 2021 Cine Mas+ San Francisco Latino Film Festival.  

Prior to these moves, Fuster worked as a multimedia producer at a local non-profit radio station called 88Nine Radio Milwaukee, where sheassisted in the filming and editing of web series National & North, At The Threshold, and Invisible Lines, all of which have gone on to win Milwaukee Press Club Awards. 

She co-directed the Invisible Lines series along with Laura Dyan Kezman and Nathan Imig. The series explores themes of segregation, racism, and prejudice from the perspectives of those in Milwaukee who face these issues the most. The series was then re-edited by Kezman and assistant edited by Fuster into a feature film that premiered at the 2018 Milwaukee Film Festival. The film has gone on to be used in corporate spaces as an educational tool on racial bias and prejudice. 

Lastly, Vianca was most recently selected for Milwaukee Film's 2021 - 2023 Focus Finder Filmmaking Accelerator Program where she will be working on her second womens’ sports-related documentary.