Evelyn Lorena

Evelyn Lorena is an American actress, writer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles and Atlanta.

Early life Lorena was born in North Carolina to Guatemalan immigrant parents. She grew up in Wilmington, North Carolina and is of indigenous Guatemalan descent. Although her parents initially discouraged her from pursuing a career in the arts, she was able to gain their support.

Career In the 2010s, Lorena was a member of the Los Angeles-based theatre company CASA 0101. In 2013, she began raising funds to produce an independent webseries, titled Crash Dance. The proof-of-concept would later become the basis for a television pilot.

Lorena then worked with former classmate Samantha Colicchio to adapt a one-act play she had written into a short film, titled For Her.

In 2021, Lorena received a Latinx Inclusion Fellowship from the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF) and Netflix. She used the grant money to finance the production of her short film, Gabriela, The entirety of the project was filmed in Wilmington, North Carolina, with the underwater scenes filmed on a soundstage.