Amy Serrano is an Award-Winning Filmmaker + Author.

Currently, Amy is shooting, writing and directing "Airman: The Extraordinary Life of Calvin G. Moret" a film based on the inspiring life and legacy of Louisiana's last known Tuskegee Airman and a story of one man's love of country and humanity, even during unconscionable times.

She is also working on the first book of The Untranslatable Words Series; Saudades: Anthological Contemplations on Persons, Places, Identity, and Time.

In English, saudade is often explained as a word, impossible to translate, yet quantifiable as a state of being that encompasses a wholly relatable configuration of bittersweet emotions. These involve a distinct strain of profound melancholic yearnings that may be for a person, a place, an identity, or time that has gone, and that may never return. Saudade is also a word for a deep-seated longing about an idealized experience that has not yet happened, and perhaps never will. Aspects of saudade may include one or more these emotions: a profound sense of longing for a lost love or the homeland, bittersweet nostalgia, deep loss, a sense of "missingness,' dynamic regret, constant craving, a gaping hole, transcendent emptiness, mysterious incompleteness, poignant sadness, an elusive wish, a singular absence, having "the blues," an ardent wistfulness, a haunting emptiness, a desperate yearning, and/or indolent dreaming.

Through poetry, photography, paintings, short stories, and song lyrics, the 26 artists from 11 different countries in this first book from the Untranslatable Words Series seek to mine and give new meaning to the dynamic and nuancical complexity of the word, saudade.

Amy has been honored by the City of Miami making October 27, "Amy Serrano Day" and has received various distinctions including twice being named a "Woman of Today" in Glamour Magazine as well as "Woman of the Year."

She has also been recognized by Clinique as 1 of 8 women profiled within a female empowerment campaign "Evolution of Woman" and by Ponds through the Tesoros Award in Art + Culture.

MegaTV named Amy "One of the Most Influential and Recognized Hispanics in the U.S" and the government of Spain has recognized her as 1 of 15 Top Hispanic Leaders in the U.S.

[photo credit by: Ann Benoit + Tom Dalferes]