Elo Santa Maria is a Texas filmmaker and artist currently living in Brooklyn. He studied sculpture and video art at the Maryland Institute College of Art (2006-2009), received a BA in Radio, Television, and Film from the University of Texas at Austin (2014), and his MFA in film directing from New York University (2023). Elo worked as a camera assistant in Austin, Texas before moving to New York City to pursue directing. Elo intertwines art and film with ideas of abolition, trans joy, and rebellion.

He wrote and directed a short film in 2022, Lonely Road, and has screened at both national and international festivals including; the Reeling Chicago International Film Festival (2024), Seattle LGBTQ Film Festival (2024), Exposures Montreal Trans Film Festival (2024), Berlin Indie Film Festival (2023), New Orleans Film Festival (2022), and the SF Transgender Film Festival (2022). Their most recent project, Moonbeams, received the Spike Lee Production Grant for Thesis Films (2022), and is a (2022) New Orleans Film Festival South Pitch Finalist. He is a Volker Bahnemann Award for Outstanding Cinematography finalist (2023). He is currently working on a narrative feature film script based on the lived experiences of trans artists inside Texas prisons.