Production

The stunning Caribbean island of Barbados is the birthplace of many things: rum, Rihanna, and sadly, ghastly innovations in 17th century plantation culture that established the island as the world’s first economy powered entirely by slavery. These modalities would soon spread across the Caribbean and into the American South, helping to lay the groundwork for the systemic racism and white supremacy that still haunt the entire western hemisphere to this day. Upon casting off the British monarchy and becoming the world’s newest republic in 2021, the island has since embarked upon a campaign seeking reparations from its former colonizer. Chief [...]

“Ellas Vinieron de Las Nubes” follows José David, Fanni, and Marlen, three young Afro-Mexicans in the mythic landscapes of Oaxaca, seeking to rediscover their ancestral African heritage. In Mexico, Blackness is shamed, with lighter skin being preferred. Through a mesmerizing blend of documentary, animation, and fiction, the film opens portals to alternate realities, immersing viewers in the personal narratives, memories, and dreams of these resilient individuals. José David, a quiet cumbia singer, is haunted by the painful legacy of his brother's mysterious departure, while Fanni, a demure college student, is ensnared by the lingering shadow of her mother's absence, when [...]

Matininó is a work-in-progress film that tells the story of the Villanueva-Rodriguez family, a multi-generational family of Puerto Rican women transforming their experience of misogyny and domestic violence into a science fiction film about an island inhabited exclusively by women warriors. The film moves seamlessly between myth and fact, the fantastical and the mundane, and levity and gravity as the family presents an alternative world intrinsically wrapped into their own. Through re-imagining the hierarchical structures of power and the ways culture weaponizes gender, the family offers both a challenge to the current patriarchal landscape and an invitation to liberation through [...]

This film explores the intersection of migration, identity, belonging, and the deep ties between personal and collective histories. At its heart is the intimate, multi-generational story of my family, focusing on my mother—an Ecuadorian immigrant who moved to a small, conservative Italian village in the 1980s for love. At a time when Italy was only beginning to confront the realities of immigration, she became the first foreigner in the village. But she was more than just an outsider; she was an educated, vegetarian, and progressive woman in a place where tradition reigned, challenging the expectations placed upon her. By the [...]

After 20 years apart, an Amerasian - Vietnamese/Black family shattered by the foster care and prison systems reunites to heal old wounds and rebuild their family, starting with finding their unhoused mother in the streets of Sacramento. Finding Má is a deeply personal feature-length documentary that follows my family’s journey to reconnect with our estranged mother and uncover the truth about our fractured family history. As an Amerasian-Vietnamese and Black filmmaker, I was separated from my family at a young age and raised in the foster care system. After spending much of my life incarcerated, I was released and set [...]

In Oakland, California, we fight to protect our children from lead poisoning in our own homes and schools – and confront over a century of environmental racism. OAKLEAD is a feature-length documentary, currently in post-production, about the longest, ongoing pediatric epidemic in U.S. history. I picked up a camera when I learned that my neighborhood is one of 3,000 communities across the United States experiencing lead poisoning at an even higher rate than Flint, Michigan. This crisis disproportionately affects Black children and other children of color. OAKLEAD centers the communities most affected by the lead poisoning epidemic, both as part [...]

UNTITLED KQT PROJECT is a feature documentary that follows a chosen family of queer and trans nightlife performers in Seoul, Korea, as they navigate gender, seek belonging, and protect their freedoms, all while joyfully rejecting societal pressures to conform. Throughout the film, glimpses of the filmmaking process are interwoven with footage of the protagonists’ day-to-day lives, establishing the film as a conversation between queers in the homeland and those in the diaspora. In bringing these elements together, the film traces a queer, transnational vision for an abundant future that is relevant to all of us as we navigate ongoing global [...]

The eldest of five daughters, 15-year-old Tamia is expected to perform domestic chores and act as an additional caretaker. A protector and budding poet, she speaks her truth through rhythmic verse. Tamia makes powerful strides to communicate to her mom that she needs a break, even as the reality of their situation escalates. Tamia takes her 7-year-old sister, London, under her wings to shield her from the pressures for Black girls to grow up too fast. The pair transform Brooklyn into their playground before Tamia’s departure to college separates them for the first time. Can Tamia go away without the [...]

Todo Lo Sólido merges documentary and fantasy to tell the story of an island sinking into the Caribbean Sea. Searching for answers to make sense of the imminent storm, a nameless rifter visits a spiritist. After summoning the drifter’s ancestors, the spiritist confirms the sinking of the island. Traveling around present-day Cuba, the drifter will begin a journey in search for the causes behind the potential disappearance of his homeland. The drifter’s voice is simultaneously the voice of the filmmaker merging diaristic and fictionalized points of view. During his journey, he encounters five characters:a historian, a fisherman, a farmer, a [...]

A queer woman of Japanese descent grieves the spirit she met and parted ways with through her pregnancy and subsequent abortion. She dreams for many nights of a taiko drum with a koi fish sticking out of one side, holding a jade ball in its mouth, representing a world restored to wholeness. Kizuna, meaning the bonds that cannot be broken, tells the story of the construction of this sacred drum and the alchemizing of loss into ancestral kinship through ritual. The drum named Kizuna by her side, the woman goes on to hold rituals for others who have undergone abortions [...]