Victoria Peralto Cruz

Victoria Peralto Cruz was inspired by her time in foster care and living in her van during college to make films with a social impact. She attended the University of Southern California film school on a scholarship which paid for tuition and books, but it did not cover housing. Victoria grew up in over twenty foster homes and institutions. Her biological parents were under the influence of drugs and living in a park during this time. After graduating high school, she aged out of the foster care system and lived on the streets in Venice Beach, CA. Eventually she found a van she could live in and would spend days and nights at the local public library filling out applications for film school. Victoria is quoted saying, "I did not know how I would achieve it, but I knew that I wanted to make films about struggling foster and homeless youth. I choose to be a "positive deviant," meaning, one whose circumstances should have caused them to self-destruct, but instead, against all odds, finds positive lessons in dark places. The idea that foster youth are broken, hopeless, and stunted by chronic abuse is false. I see them as resilient, raising themselves and finding healing in ways that are outside of social norms. Japanese "Kintsugi" is the art of joining broken pottery with gold in order to accentuate the original break rather than hide it. Similarly, when foster youth use their survivor resilience to forge solutions, they create a Kintsugi art piece from their trauma and it is stunning to behold". It is Victoria's hope that the films she writes and directs will empower foster children, homeless youth, and society as a whole to believe in a future with hope, rather than statistics - a future where the inventions of their resilient hearts can create a stronger more compassionate country and world. After college Victoria wrote and directed several commercials, music videos, documentaries and, narrative films. Her documentary "Venice Neverland: Street Kids of Venice Beach" won the "Unstoppable Still I Rise" award 2019. She was also awarded best documentary film at The Other Venice Film Festival and Sunscreen Film Festival West. Her narrative film "Road Dogs" won the Platinum Remi Award for best dramatic original film at the Houston International Film Festival.