Bio

I’m currently completing research and experimentation in 16 mm celluloid moving image, digital cinema and audio works at Duke University’s MFA in Experimental and Documentary Arts.

Teaching filmmaking at Pratt Institute, Cleveland Institute of Art, Cuyahoga Community College, Center for Arts Inspired Learning, Women in Transition and teaching theater making at the Manhattan Theater Club’s education program, Stargate were among the most thrilling, challenging and illuminating experiences I’ve had.

Receiving the Arts Cleveland Creative Workforce Fellowship grant and the Center for Arts Inspired Learning Teaching Artist grant supported my first feature film currently in post-production.

I’ve also been humbled to receive the Duke Dean Research Award, New York University Tisch East Alumni Council Microgrant for producing ten Tisch alumni writers work in the 10×10 Tisch Alumni Reading Series and the Martin Scorsese Filmmaker Grant and Tisch Dean Craft Award upon graduating from Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

Duke University MFA Experimental and Documentary Arts ’23 Candidate Simone Barros

Experimental and documentary filmmaker, audio artist, Simone Barros joins Duke University’s 2023 MFA EDA cohort.

Arts Cleveland proudly presents Simone Barros as a 2016 Creative Workforce Fellow

The Creative Workforce Fellowship is a program of the Community Partnership for Arts and Culture, made possible by the generous support of Cuyahoga County residents through a public grant from Cuyahoga Arts & Culture.

“I am producing and directing Freedom Runners, an essay film drawing the psychological space and time of Joan Southgate’s journey walking from the present into the past covering the distance of the Underground Railroad from Ohio’s southernmost tip to Canada.” – Simone Barros

Creative Compass sits down with filmmaker, Simone Barros, to discuss her short film and artistic influences

“Artistic success is simply staking out regular time to practice your craft and make work. It is not easy with the monetary demands of most of our lives. Thus, we often correlate artistic success with monetary success, in an effort to buy more time to practice our craft. I recently read that William Falkner wrote As I Lay Dying between midnight and 4 am over the course of six weeks while working at a power plant. Making work out of a regular practice is the success.” – Simone Barros

Tisch Special Programs recently interviewed Simone Barros, a member of the inaugural 35mm Filmmaking in Prague summer study aboard program

Simone discussed the impact this program had to her overall education, the challenges and rewards of being a pioneer in the program, and the importance of learning how to work with celluloid as a filmmaker.

Slate.com “I Probably Modeled Him on Something I’d Heard on The Wire”

Slate.com writer, Laura Miller, interviews Simone Barros, alongside acclaimed actors January LaVoy, Edoardo Ballerini and Kevin R. Free about the changing landscape of audiobooks from a history of an sort of audio blackface despite the talent and skill of BIPOC actors.

NPR “Undercover: How audiobooks bring a story to life”

Greta Johnsen, host of the Nerdette WBEZ Chicago radio show and podcast, interviews Simone Barros, with acclaimed actors Robin Miles, Kevin R. Free, audiobook producer, Sarah Jaffe and hilariously insightful author Maeve Higgins about the process of voicing audiobooks, from the written word to the spoken word.