Stella Arroyave Hopkins is founder and CEO of Margam Films, LLC, an independent film company, based in Los Angeles. In 2007, Stella produced Slipstream, an Anthony Hopkins film. She was cast in the role of Gina Bonhoeffer, the wife of Felix Bonhoeffer (Anthony Hopkins). Stella is making her feature film directorial debut with Elyse (2019), which she produced and co-wrote. Stella was born in Bogota, Colombia. Her family migrated to New York City when she was 3 years old. At nineteen, following her dream of being a filmmaker, Stella moved to Los Angeles.
In 1980, Stella met Swedish film director, Gunnar Hellström while filming a cameo in Mark I Love You (CBS 2-hour movie of the week). Stella understudied Hellström on the production of Raskenstam (1983), a Svenska Filminstitutet film; this was her introduction to Swedish Cinema. She attributes her inspiration as a filmmaker to Sweden’s most accomplished director Ingmar Bergman, the auteur whose films gave way to Art House Cinema. Stella used this cinematic style to create Elyse.
Refusing to be restricted by story, Stella developed complex characters driven by compulsive obsessions, fears, thoughts and dreams. Influenced by Bergman’s preferred cinematic quality of the use of close ups, she captured and magnified the painful horror of
Elyse’s paralyzing mental illness. In collaboration with Margam Films, Stella is developing a documentary based on the life of Sir Anthony Hopkins. Stella currently lives in Malibu, California, with her husband and their rescue cats.
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