Èlia Gasull Balada is a visual artist and filmmaker. Her body of work is focused on stories that underscore deeply felt themes of trauma, race, inequity and activism in the face of steep odds. In 2021, she was listed under the DOC NYC 40 under 40 list, a program co-presented by HBO which shines a spotlight on emerging talent in the documentary world and in 2023 she was selected to be part of the Berlinale Talents Summit.

Èlia has extensively worked as an editor and writer for documentaries and has also edited several narrative films. Her most recent credits include the short film The Heart, the directorial debut of Malia Ann, executive-produced by Donald Glover (Telluride Film Festival and Toronto Film Festival 2023, Sundance Film Festival 2024) and The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks, directed by Johanna Hamilton and Yoruba Richen (Tribeca Film Festival 2022), which won a Peabody Award and a Gracie Award, and received a Television Academy Honor, and was also nominated for a Critics Choice Award.

Her other documentary credits include the Emmy and Peabody nominee The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show and the Emmy and Grammy nominee The King. Executive produced by Steven Soderbergh and Erroll Morris and directed by Eugene Jarecki, The King premiered at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival and at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival. Her work as a writer for The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show earned her a nomination for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Writing in a Documentary in 2020. 

Èlia edited the feature narrative Son of Monarchs. Writing for the New York Times, journalist Isabelia Herrera notes, “the film’s rich imagery will be imprinted in your memory, returning to you in dreams.” The film won the Alfred P. Sloan Prize at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival. It was recognized by the Seattle International Film Festival with the Grand Jury Prize under the New American Cinema Competition.  

For the past two years, she has been working on a film and a mixed media installation that honors a group of Indigenous women from the Peruvian Amazon who suffered the trauma of forced sterilization at the hands of President Alberto Fujimori’s government between 1995 and 2000 — and their agency as artists and activists today.

During the fall of 2022, the first part of the installation was shown at the Centro Cultural Inca Garcilaso in Lima as part of the show Maya Maya Bainkin (Advancing by Turning and Turning) - Shipibo Art and Futures. Curated by the Shipibo Conibo Center of New York, the exhibition received the National Curatorial Award Llama from the Curators Association of Peru. 

Èlia has been a mentor for the DOC NYC x Video Consortium Storytelling Incubator and has taught film editing at The Edit Center of New York and at The Autonomous University of Barcelona. Originally from Barcelona, Spain, Èlia has been based in Brooklyn, New York for the past decade.