Maria Bures - Miami

Maria Burés came of age during Anita Bryant’s “Save Our Children” campaign and witnessed the AIDS crisis firsthand in San Francisco. These experiences cemented her lifelong commitment to advancing justice for the LGBTQ+ and Latino communities.

A director and producer with more than four decades of experience spanning commercials, digital media, documentary, and television, she has created content for Discovery Health Latin America, People & Arts Network, Disney Latin America, Univision, PBS, and numerous educational and cultural institutions. A graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, her work bridges media and social impact, from Univision’s Univisionarios — including a profile of a transgender Latina that helped earn its subject a national award — to the PBS documentary Letters to Eloisa about Cuban gay writer José Lezama Lima and the award-winning engagement initiatives Health Week and Education Week. Throughout her career, she has used storytelling as a tool for visibility, dignity and change.

She volunteered with SAVE during the 2002 campaign to uphold Miami-Dade’s Human Rights Ordinance and later served five years on the board of the Save Foundation. Maria lives in Coral Gables with her wife, MaryAnne Lukacs; together they support LGBTQ+ and Democratic candidates and serve on the board of the Renmen Foundation in Haiti, where their two daughters were born.