Juanamaría Cordones-Cook, Ph.D., has built her scholarship around four related and complimentary pillars: gender studies, Afro-Latin American theater, Afro-Cuban Renaissance and documentary filmmaking. Her research focuses on the convergence of arts and letters and social concerns, and has always concentrated on the marginal noncanonical voices, literature and culture of women, and Afro-descendants; those who share an experience of oppression and repression. Cordones-Cook's extensive scholarly work includes research, publications and documentaries on Spanish American writers.

Building upon her research and in the process of filming oral histories and cultural events, Cordones-Cook started directing and producing documentaries on the most representative Afro-Cuban intellectuals and artists who came of age after the 1959 Cuban revolution. She is building a unique encyclopedic audiovisual platform on which to share these Afro-Cuban writers and artists and their creations and engage a broader audience.

Cordones-Cook is an award-winning filmmaker, and was nominated for an Emmy in 2014 for directing and producing a historical documentary. So far she has completed 25 documentaries and is currently making progress on other films. In addition, she creates a series of testimonial documentaries.  She is frequently invited as a featured speaker or to screen her films at prestigious academic and cultural institutions in the United States and around the world, including the Massachusetts College of Art and Design; Harvard University; Washington University; Barnard College; Smith College; New York University; the Museum of the African Diaspora of San Francisco; as well as overseas including the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes of Havana; the UNAM in Mexico City; "Fundación Internacional Jorge Luis Borges," Argentina; M.A.L.B.A. Museum of Buenos Aires; U.N.E.S.C.O./Casa de las Américas and U.N.E.A.C., in Havana; Fundación Caguayo, in Santiago de Cuba; “Feria Internacional del Libro” in various cities in Cuba; the University of Birmingham, England; "Cabildo de Montevideo," the Universidad de la República, Uruguay; the Universidad de Cartagena, Colombia; La Sorbonne, Paris; the Université de Lyon 2, France;  Humboldt University and the Instituto Cervantes, in Berlin; the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.