Announcing Fall 2025 Editing Fellows in Partnership with PG&E

We’re excited to announce BAVC Media’s 2025 cohort of Better Together Fellows in partnership with PG&E: Our Media Producer cohort fellows include DeAndre Waters, Arlly Abarientos and Alana Walker and our Assistant Editor cohort fellows are Kelly Chen, Lily Shannon-Sutter and Angelica Castro. Award-winning professional editors and filmmakers, Jessica Jones and Kristina Motwani, are returning as editing mentors for Fellows in this third cohort of the fellowship, and they’re joined by Sean Havey and Caron Creighton who will serve as media producer mentors.

A unique opportunity to build the production and post-production workforce in San Francisco, the Fellowship aims to impart industry knowledge from seasoned professionals, assist in Fellows’ development and facilitate the addition of professional work samples to each Fellow’s portfolio.

We recently held our kick-off for our new Media Producer and Assistant Editor cohorts, our first in-person meeting with all of our Fellows, our mentors, BAVC, and PG&E present. Our Fellows learned more about BAVC and PG&E storytelling, asked engaging questions, and showed eagerness to get started. We are grateful to PG&E for their support of early career, underrepresented creatives, which has led to this program in its third iteration.

-Allison Bumatay, BAVC Media’s Senior Manager of Training & Workforce Development

Sponsored by Blackmagic Design, who have generously provided the use of Blackmagic DaVinci Resolve and Blackmagic Pocket Cinema 4K Cameras for participants during the fellowship.

Learn more about the Fellows and mentors below.

Media Producer Mentors: 

Sean Havey

Sean Havey is a documentary filmmaker with over a decade of experience creating immersive and poignant stories. Most recently, he served as the Producer and Director of Photography for the film Stephen Curry: Underrated. He was also the Producer, DP, and Story Producer for the 2021 Sundance award-winning film, Homeroom, and the Hulu Original Film Anthem. Sean consistently works with various News outlets, including The New York Times, Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. In 2020, he won a National Edward R. Murrow Award for his visuals on the KQED series Graying California.

Caron Creighton

Caron Creighton is an award winning journalist and filmmaker residing in the Bay Area. Her feature documentary Wood Street has received support from the 2023/24 SF Film FilmHouse Residency, the 2024 Big Sky Pitch, and the 2024 BAVC MediaMaker Fellowship. In 2025, Wood Street participated in Black Public Media’s PitchBlack Forum in New York, and won the Realscreen Pitch competition in Miami. She also earned this year’s UFO x Peace is Loud Impact-Post residency, and is part of the Sundance Cultural Impact Residency inaugural cohort. Caron has worked for The Associated Press, AJ+, KCBS Radio and The San Francisco Chronicle and has lectured at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She has reported on the struggles faced by Eritrean migrants in Israel, and West African migration through Latin America. Much of her work is focused on displacement within the African diaspora, as informed by her identity.

Media Producer Fellows: 

DeAndre Waters

DeAndre found his love for visual storytelling in his hometown of Vallejo, California. Not only was this the place where his media adventures began, but it was the place where he realized film & media production can leave a large social impact on our local communities. Inspired by this revelation, he went on to get a degree in Cinema & Digital Media and another in Sociology. He plans to combine both perspectives in his journey as a filmmaker to create and curate impactful stories of underserved communities and important social issues. After graduating from UC Davis, he has been doing freelance work while crafting stories and ideas for his next batch of short films. His dream is to work in the film industry while having lots of good friends that he can collaborate with and learn from. With BAVC Media and PG&E, he hopes to maximize the Better Together Media Producer Fellowship, creating meaningful connections, learning an industry work ethic, and getting his foot in the door as an up-and-coming filmmaker. He is so excited for this opportunity and can’t wait to get started!

Arlly Abarientos

Arlly Abarientos is a Filipina videographer and editor based in the East Bay Area. She holds a B.F.A. in Film Production from CSU Long Beach and brings a strong foundation in media production to her work. Passionate about capturing genuine, real-time moments, Arlly specializes in storytelling through film with a natural, documentary-style approach. She is currently focused on honing her technical and creative camera skills and is eager to gain more hands-on experience in fast-paced, live event settings. Through the video fellowship, Arlly hopes to grow as a visual storyteller, collaborate with fellow creatives, and gain mentorship and real-world experience that will elevate both her craft and creative impact.

Alana Walker

Alana Walker, a Bay Area native, has a professional background in media, entertainment, and content creation. From working with animation development studios such as the Jim Henson Company and Skydanca Animation, to interning with film festivals such as BlackStar, Superfest, and the Stuttgart International Animated Film Festival, to assisting the Engagement Producer and Podcast Manager at KQED. She is excited to continue growing professionally in media production by learning videography through the opportunity to create community conscious videos that center the local Bay Area Community.

 

Assistant Editor Mentors:

Kristina Motwani

Kristina Motwani is an award-winning film editor, producer, writer, and story consultant working in San Francisco.With Homeroom (2021), Home is a Hotel (2023), Fruits of Labor (2021), First Vote (2020), Midnight Traveler (2019) and After Tiller (2013) Motwani’s verité documentary style strives to give intimate portraits of real people. These films were honored with Peabody, Emmy and festival awards.

Other personal recognitions include the 2021 Sundance Jonathan Oppenheim Edit Award, 2021 IFF Boston Karen Schmeer Excellence in Documentary Editing, 2023 Karen Schmeer Fellowship mentor, 2019 DOCNYC 40 under 40 honoree, 2018 SFFilm FilmHouse Resident and a 2017 BAVC National MediaMaker Fellow. Her work has screened at the Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca, SXSW, SFFilm festival and has been seen on PBS, Netflix, Hulu and the World Channel.

Jessica Jones

Jessica Jones is an Emmy® (CA-regional)-nominated documentary filmmaker and editor. Her work often focuses on community, cultural representation, and racial equity through character-driven narratives. She served as an assistant editor for A FRAGILE TRUST, A NEW COLOR, and an associate editor for VOICES RISING: THE MUSIC BEHIND WAKANDA FOREVER. She has edited numerous short documentaries, which have appeared on The New York Times, BBC, KQED, among other publications. In 2021, she completed a short film ON THE PULSE OF LIFE, which screened at the Smithsonian FUTURES exhibit. In 2023, she co-edited her first feature, BORN FOR THIS: a feature documentary addressing Black maternal health and birth equity. Currently, she is a 2023-24 Sundance Documentary Contributing Editor Fellow and 2024 SFFILM House Resident. She is directing a short documentary called WOMEN WHO RIDE, about Oakland’s first Black all-female motorcycle club, and editing COACH EMILY, an upcoming feature documentary.

Assistant Editor Fellows:

Kelly Chen

Kelly Chen is a 2024 graduate of the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she earned her BA in Film & Digital Media and Sociology.  As an alum of BAVC’s youth program in high school, she is excited to return as a fellow and continue her journey with the organization. She currently works in marketing and advertising as a Social Media Specialist, where she redesigns website interfaces for better user experience and produces compelling social media content to promote client services. Kelly aims to continue her work in media while expanding into news journalism, with a focus on uplifting the voices of underserved communities. Through this fellowship, she hopes to sharpen her video editing skills, grow her portfolio, and collaborate with like-minded peers. 

Lily Shannon-Sutter

Lily is a multimedia artist and recovering perfectionist who finds joy in self expression, delicious food, music, nature, and laughing with friends. Lily grew up in Oakland, CA and graduated from Loyola Marymount University with a B.A. in Film & TV Production. In college she fell in love with film editing and interned in the post-production department at Sony Pictures. Most recently Lily worked as a Post PA on “Karate Kid: Legends.” As a Chinese-American adoptee who rarely sees her complexity reflected in mainstream media, Lily is passionate about making films to amplify the diverse stories of unseen individuals and communities. In her art, Lily explores questions of identity and belonging to find meaning in her origins and to create collective discourse about the feelings of cultural “in-betweenness.” Her most recent documentary, “Third Culture Kids,” made while studying abroad in Germany, was chosen as one of the 5 best films of her program and screened at the 2024 LA Student Film Festival. Lily is thrilled to be a BAVC fellow and hopes to find a community of like-minded creatives, with whom she can make films about relevant topics such as climate change, immigration, and women’s rights.

Angelica Castro

Angelica Estrella is a multimedia artist that centers her artwork & visual storytelling with cultural identities and enhancing stories of marginalized peoples. Born and raised in San Francisco, she upholds community preservation in which Multimedia and social justice work is something she would like to collide as one of her goals. Serving, healing, and storytelling for the people in San Francisco. Angelica is a student at CCSF brushing up on her technical skills in the Broadcasting Electronic Media Department. She will then transfer to SF State to obtain her degree in that field. In the meantime, Angelica will continue to cultivate her skills and she hopes to get started into being a fulltime visual storyteller, with editing and creating short films. She hopes to develop a real career establishment and understanding of the field within the fellowship. She hopes that the fellowship will give her that initial start into her career and build community.