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Kico Velarde is a five-time Primetime Emmy-nominated producer, director, and editor splitting his time between Los Angeles and Savannah, Georgia. With a career spanning over two decades, Velarde has established himself as a dynamic force in entertainment, seamlessly moving between feature films, television, and branded content.
Velarde began his career as an assistant editor, honing his craft for industry giants including NBCUniversal, Deluxe Digital Studios, Technicolor, HGTV, and IFC. His trajectory shifted dramatically when he produced PVC-1 (2007), a gripping single-take thriller that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival's prestigious Directors' Fortnight, earning the Award of the City of Rome and a Camera d'Or nomination. He followed that with Meteora (2012), an experimental drama that competed for the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival, cementing his reputation as a producer of bold, boundary-pushing cinema. He later directed The Shooting Star Salesman, an award-winning short blending magical realism with poignant storytelling.
In television, Velarde rose to prominence as the Supervising Producer of Jay Leno's Garage, where his creative vision helped transform a grassroots YouTube series into a full-scale CNBC network show that ran for five successful seasons, earning him five Primetime Emmy nominations along the way.
As Chief Creative Officer & Executive Producer of Escape Plan, the production company he co-founded with his wife, Joanna Velarde, he has led award-winning branded content campaigns for MotorTrend, Apple, Hasbro, ATOMOS, and the George W. Bush Presidential Center. Most notably, his work on Lowrider Roll Models - a groundbreaking series celebrating Lowrider culture, identity, and heritage - generated 83+ million impressions, reached 53 million viewers worldwide, and secured distribution on HBO Max.
Most recently, Velarde is Executive Producer of Against the Odds, a soon-to-be-released docu-series filmed across Europe, following a female racecar driver breaking barriers in the McLaren Trophy GT racing series - blending high-speed action with an intimate portrait of perseverance.
A storyteller driven by cultural authenticity and cinematic ambition, Kico Velarde remains one of entertainment's most versatile and innovative voices.
