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On the big screen
When Accounting Professor Daniela De la Parra first received an email from movie producers, she thought it was a scam.
“I was very skeptical, especially the part that they would pay for my expenses,” she says. “But they weren’t really asking for any information from me. They just wanted to chat.”
A quick Google search showed the producers, Carla Berkowitz and Angela Almeida, were not only legitimate, but also highly acclaimed, so De la Parra felt intrigued to speak with them. They were making a documentary about a young chess player and wanted to interview other women who had reached the highest levels of the game.
It made perfect sense. Before landing at UNC Kenan-Flagler, De la Parra was a professional chess player for 12 years.
De la Parra films with the subject of the documentary, Bianca Mitchell-Avila.
Executive produced by Keanu Reeves, “Madwoman’s Game” follows the journey of a young Latina chess enthusiast, Bianca Mitchell-Avila, as she explores life’s lessons through the lens of the game.
For De la Parra’s segment, producers flew her to Houston to have a conversation with Mitchell-Avila at a Renaissance festival. Her only guidance: Stay focused on sacrifice, both on the chessboard and in life.
There, they spoke with a woman dressed as a knight about struggle, resilience and sacrifice — only to watch her lose in battle before the crowd.
At first, De la Parra worried the footage wouldn’t be usable. But later, as she showed Mitchell-Avila how sacrificing a knight can lead to checkmate, the moment became a metaphor.
“We make a sacrifice, but we end up winning the game in life,” she says.
A knight sacrifice that wins the game
Despite it all working out in the end, making the final decision to be a part of “Madwoman’s Game” wasn’t so easy for De la Parra, as it was a particularly rough time in her personal life.
“Sometimes you get to a point where you don’t know what’s going to happen and you have to push yourself out of that darkness in a way,” she says. “And I knew that maybe at that moment I didn’t want to do it, but I would be proud of myself in the future for having been part of it.”
That future was fulfilled when she saw the full film for the first time at the Chicano Hollywood Film Festival — and walked the red carpet with Keanu Reeves.
“After two years, now that I see it, I’m glad I pushed myself to do it, even though I just wanted to stay home and be in my own cave.”