Telling tales with Ana Laura Solis

Ana Laura Solis joins our Zoom call wearing, in her words, “a very pink dress”. 

Not a strategic branding pink to match the logo of her creative production/production service company, Story, or a soft rose-tinted nod to femininity, but a bold, unapologetic shade of cerise. It’s a small detail, but it tells you a lot about Solis: she has spent her career rewriting what leadership in production looks like, on her own terms.   

A Cannes Lions Grand Prix–winning producer, YDA ambassador, and co-founder of The Lift and Story, Solis has been a quiet architect behind some of the most lauded commercial work of the past two decades, including Volvo’s viral, Van-Damme-starring Epic Split. She’s also a champion of women, young directors and above all, the craft.  

[My dad] wanted me to understand what making money meant.

Born and raised in Mexico City, Solis’s education didn’t begin in film school, but on sets in the late 1980s and early 90s, where her father - the director Joe Solis - ran La Fábrica Films. At the time, production in Mexico was dominated by a handful of companies. “Each one would do the entire campaign for a particular car brand - Ford, Nissan, Chrysler, Volkswagen,” she says. “My dad did General Motors - from sports cars all the way to trucks.” 

Above: El Caballo de Pepephone, directed by Andreas Nilsson through Solis' production company, Story in Spain. 

Every summer from the age of thirteen, while her classmates headed off on beach holidays to San Diego, Solis was sent to work. “He wanted me to understand what making money meant,” she says. She rotated through departments - casting assistant one year, script the next, second AD after that - absorbing how the production machine functioned from the inside out. 

Her father’s company was run with a distinctly Japanese ethos, thanks to his partnership with a Japanese DP. “Very honourable, honest, work-oriented, structured,” she says. “I grew up believing how important it was to work like that.” It’s a value system that still underpins her approach today: respect for craft, for people, for process. 

At the time, I looked up to Scorsese and Coppola; I thought to be a director you needed to be a grown person, really knowledgeable.

In her late teens, Solis left Mexico to study film at ESEC Paris. “I’d already done a lot of hands-on work,” she says. “In Paris, I was learning the philosophy of filmmaking and understanding why we make films.” Directing was soon discarded as a career option. “At the time, I looked up to Scorsese and Coppola; I thought to be a director you needed to be a grown person, really knowledgeable. There’s so much blah, blah, blah. My classmates at film school seemed very arrogant for thinking they could do it!” Instead, Solis fell in love with editing. Working on U-matics and Moviolas, she was fascinated by the invisible architecture of storytelling. “I thought: this is where the magic happens,” she says.  

But life had other plans. Post graduation, Solis hopped back and forth across the pond - working as an assistant editor and first AD in Mexico, and then as a DP’s agent at a repping agency in Soho, London - before finally putting down roots in Barcelona. 

In 2001, at the tender age of 26, she and co-founder Pablo Cruz set up their own production and service company, The Lift, with backing from Stillking’s Matthew Stillman (who was, at the time, still part of Stink). The name came from their office in the Poblenou district - an industrial space with a massive freight elevator - but also as a statement of intent. “We were going up,” she says. 

Above: Solis' company Story delivered production services for Ad Council's hard-hitting film Prepare for Misuse. 

And rise they did, in a climate that was raw, energetic, and creatively open. Thanks to Stillman’s involvement, The Lift was soon repping big-name Stink directors like Traktor, Steve Ayson and Andreas Nilsson in Spain, while also offering production service – a combination many warned against. “Everyone said: you can’t do both,” Solis says. “I was like, why not?” 

'Story' felt round and curvy - more feminine. Together with the pink branding, it represented another side of me.

Handling shoots all over Spain from Seville to Madrid, The Lift took production service to another level. “We decided to make the whole experience really cool – fully branded, from the merchandise to the food,” she remembers. “We really blew things up.” 

The first job to put them on the map was Ford Stuntmen for Ogilvy Madrid, co-produced with Stink London and directed by Martin Schmid. It was a high-risk, high-budget automotive shoot – chock-full of helicopters, stunts, fire and explosions - and one of the cars they used was the client’s own vehicle. “Incredibly,” Solis says, “we still ended up with happy clients.” After that, calls for large-scale auto work started flooding in and The Lift carried on its upward trajectory, opening a Mexico office in 2005.

Above: Ford Stuntmen for Ogilvy Madrid, co-produced with Stink London and directed by Martin Schmid, put The Lift firmly on the advertising map.

However, all good things come to an end, and in 2012, Solis split from her business partners. She needed a new name for her new chapter, and Story fit the bill perfectly. “It felt round and curvy - more feminine. Together with the pink branding, it represented another side of me.” 

The following year, Story became a multi-generational family affair, merging with Joe Solis’ La Fábrica in Mexico, and bringing on board Solis’ sister Aura as an EP. “It’s funny, but we each had to do our own thing for 20 years before we actually worked together,” laughs Solis. “She’s very structured and organised: A, B, C, tick, tick, tick. I’m more intuitive and creative, so we’re a great mix.”  

The atmosphere [in the office and on sets] is lighter. Issues get solved more easily - perhaps it’s the shared hormones?

Today, Story is a multi-generational, majority female-owned company operating across Mexico, Colombia, Chile, and soon Panama. More than 70 per cent of the team is female. “Historically, it’s always been the boys’ club,” Solis says. “I wanted to change the record.” 

What distinguishes Story isn’t just representation, it’s the culture they create. “The atmosphere [in the office and on sets] is lighter. Issues get solved more easily - perhaps it’s the shared hormones?” she laughs. On a more serious note, every Story production begins with mandatory training on harassment and bullying. “In Mexico in particular, sets are not always safe, especially companies owned by men.” Solis doesn’t frame this as activism. "It’s simply how things should be done."

Above: Solis' passion for craft is evident in one of Story’s earliest successes, the multiple award-winning Volvo Epic Split.

The same applies to sustainability. Through Aura’s green production company, Locali, Story embeds sustainable practices into every job, from recycling systems to reusable cups, CO₂ reporting and green PAs on set. “If the budget won’t stretch, we pay for it ourselves,” Solis says. “Because if we don’t do our little bit, nothing big will ever change.” 

Yet for all her emphasis on people and process, Solis remains fiercely devoted to craft. A case in point is one of Story’s earliest successes, the multiple award-winning Volvo Epic Split. Putting the stability and precision of Volvo’s steering to the ultimate test, it saw action hero Jean Claude Van Damme heading off into the sunset, suspended between two reversing trucks in a gravity-defying split. Much of the spot’s appeal is in the seemingly effortless payoff, but like a graceful swan paddling madly under the water, the underlying production demands were intense.  

When Andreas [Nilsson] played the music over the rough cut, we all got chills.

“When we received the script from Folke Film, we thought it was a crazy job to execute,” remembers Solis. Their first task was finding a 1km-long runway that could be closed for at least three days, which led them to Ciudad Real, a disused airport two hours’ south of Madrid. The shoot itself had to be cloaked in secrecy to protect the identity of its star. Was Van Damme as tricky to work with as rumours suggest? “I will only say that things were not perfect, until that magical shot which became the one on the final spot,” says Solis diplomatically. “When Andreas [Nilsson] played the music over the rough cut, we all got chills. That’s the joy for me: helping a director translate words on a page into a new visual language.” 

Above: Solis' devotion to craft is highlighted in her collaborations with director Floria Sigismondi, particularly on the ambitious Meta spot, Good Ideas Deserve To Be Found.

That same motivation defines her collaborations with director Floria Sigismondi, most notably on the ambitious Meta spot, Good Ideas Deserve To Be Found. The week-long shoot involved major road closures and dozens of characters, as well as ensuring all elements of the job were up to Sigismondi’s exacting standards. “She gets involved with every detail, from the wardrobe to the manicures on the backing dancers,” Solis says. “She’s not easy to work with, but no director is. I’d do anything for her.”

Historically, it’s always been the boys’ club. I wanted to change the record.

It’s not only working with established names that brings Solis joy; she’s also a fierce champion of emerging talent and has served as an ambassador for the Young Director Award. A recent highlight was Nacimos Llorando, a 21-minute musical short directed by Fernando Cattori Pandora for Chilean artist RUBIO. Made with almost no budget, it was deeply personal, drawing on Fernando’s experience growing up queer. “It was as epic as Volvo, in its own way,” Solis says.