Lío Mehiel

Lío Mehiel is a Puerto Rican and Greek transmasculine artist, filmmaker, and actor. Their practice explores the concept of "transness" as a philosophy, an orientation towards embodied creativity that extends beyond an individual’s gender expression.
Lío began their career as a professional salsa dancer and child actor on Broadway. Currently, they are best known for their performance in the feature film, MUTT by writer/director Vuk Lungulov-Klotz, for which Lío was the first trans actor to win the Special Jury Award for Best Acting at the Sundance Film Festival in 2023. The film went on to win at the Berlin International Film Festival in the Generation 14plus category, and was selected as the closing night film at New Directors/New Films Festival presented by MoMA and Lincoln Center.
As a filmmaker, Lío produced CHAPERONE, a queer short film which premiered at Sundance 2022. They wrote, directed, produced, and starred in DISFORIA, a short film which premiered at Outfest Film Festival in 2018. They are now stuck inside of a psychomagic act with the story as they write the feature script version and confront their own medical transition.
As a visual artist, Lío’s work has been featured in publications such as DAZED, Hypebae, Artnet, The Art Newspaper, GayTimes, LA Weekly, and others. Their mixed-media project PHANTOM FEEL, in collaboration with Holly Silius and Kobe Wagstaff, was selected to be on a billboard in New York City as part of Pussyriot’s public art exhibition, Patriarchy.
Lío is currently the producer and creative director of angels (fka Ancient Futures), a developing collection of stone sculptures of transgender humans.
Lío is a co-founder of Voyeur Productions with Russell Kahn and Dulcinée DeGuere. They attended Northwestern University, and are an alumni of the Emerge NYC residency program for artists and activists.