About Ropa Vieja Films
Ropa Vieja Films was created by Francisco Bello to make documentary films that are faithful to experience, stripped of preconception and told with a distinct, artful voice. We tell complex, intimate stories across the globe about artists, outlaws, reformers, educators, and people like you and me.
Since 2008, work by Ropa Vieja Films has been seen in hundreds of film festivals, theaters, VOD and television broadcasters worldwide.
Francisco Bello
Director, Producer, Writer, Editor, Shooter
Principal, Ropa Vieja Films
Francisco Bello, ACE is an OSCAR® Nominated and EMMY Winning filmmaker based in NYC. He studied at the Cooper Union School of Art, and has worked in the post-production of films by Kevin Smith, Michael Moore, and George Butler, among others.
Francisco launched Ropa Vieja Films LLC in 2007 SALIM BABA, which has screened in over 100 festivals worldwide including Sundance, Telluride, IDFA, Woodstock and Tribeca. In 2008 SALIM BABA was Nominated for an ACADEMY AWARD® for Best Short Documentary, followed by a News & Documentary EMMY Nomination in 2009.
With director and filmmaking partner Rebecca Ruchman Cohen, Francisco produced and edited WAR DON DON which won the Special Jury Prize at the 2010 SXSW Film Festival, and for which he was awarded the first Karen Schmeer Award for Excellence in Documentary Editing. “War Don Don” was Nominated for two 2011 Emmys in two categories: Outstanding Coverage of a News Story (Long Form) and Outstanding Editing. Reuniting with Richman-Cohen, he wrote, produced, edited CODE OF THE WEST, which premiered at the 2012 SXSW Film Festival and won a CINE Golden Eagle in 2013.
In 2022 he received an Outstanding Editing Emmy win for Oscar nominee Matthew Heineman’s THE FIRST WAVE (NatGeo, Neon, Participant), for which the film also won Outstanding Cinematography and Best Documentary Emmys.
His first project as a narrative feature film editor, Ana Asencio’s MOST BEAUTIFUL ISLAND, won the 2018 SXSW Grand Jury Prize, and Best Editing at DTLA.
As a documentary film editor his work includes BEST KEPT SECRET (POV broadcast, 2013 Gotham Audience Award Nomination, 2014 Peabody Award winner), OUR NIXON (2013 Rotterdam, SXSW, New Directors New Films + CNN broadcast) for which he won his second Karen Schmeer Award for Excellence in Documentary Editing, and THE REAGAN SHOW (CNN Broadcast), for which he received an Outstanding Editing Nomination from the 2018 Cinema Eye.
Additional credits include writing and editing the Emmy Nominated and Oscar Shortlisted TAKEOVER (NYT Op-Docs), Oscar nominee Richard Rowley’s Emmy winning 16 SHOTS (Showtime) and writing and editing Oscar winner Barbara Kopple’s Emmy Nominated DESERT ONE (History).
Francisco’s most recent film as co-director reunited the creative team behind SALIM BABA, DREAMING AGAINST THE WORLD, which premiered at the 2015 Telluride Film Festival.
Francisco is a member of the Documentary Branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, American Cinema Editors (ACE), and served as both a mentor and board member for the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship. He was awarded the 2011 NALIP Estela Award, fellowships from the PBS/WGBH Producer‘s Academy, the Latino Producers Academy, Tribeca All Access, and grants from the Tribeca Film Institute, Vital Projects Fund, Catapult Film Fund, Urban Artists Initiative, Queens Council on the Arts, among others. Francisco has been a featured speaker at dozens of workshops and panels, taught editing and post-production at the Cooper Union and continues to balance his time between freelancing as a filmmaker and developing new projects from Ropa Vieja Films.