CHEF
In progress - Reporting was supported by UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism
CHEF is an intimate portrait of a female chef whose thoughtfully prepared dishes are a product of a complicated relationship with structural gender inequality in Mexico.
Collect Calls
Collect Calls is an intimate portrait of a family impacted by mass incarceration. An elderly woman reflects on the years that have passed since she's last seen her son. Her only form of communication with him is over the phone but she fears she won't live long enough to see him again on the outside. This short film explores human connection through estranged relationships and the realization that the punishment of incarceration is felt beyond the prison cell.
Antes Del Sol
Reporting was supported by UC Berkeley's 11th Hour Food and Farming Fellowship and world renowned Chef Jose Andres
Screened at BAMPFA Student Film Festival 2023
Antes Del Sol is based on the shadow network of teenage farmworkers. As many as 500,000 kids between ages 12 and 17 work in America’s fields. This short film was screened at George Washington University. A deeper dive into this shadow network was published by Teen Vogue in October. Read it here.
GERARDO
Officially selected for the 18th Santa Cruz Film Festival premiering Oct 2022 - Send inquiry to watch privately
GERARDO is based on the death of an Indigenous 19-year-old who was shot and killed by a Salinas police officer in July 2021. His mother talks about the night he was shot and killed at her front door step. The case of Gerardo Martinez has been reopened due to the pressure of city advocates and his mother seeking justice.
Zide Door
Published by Oaklandside 2022
Smoke twirls from the lips of a man with a long beard and metal-framed glasses, who is dressed like the Pope with a psychedelic twist: embroidered gold hemp leaves decorate his cloak, and mushrooms adorn his stole.
Dave Hodges is the pastor, preacher, and founder of Zide Door, a nondenominational and interfaith church in Oakland where religious practice centers on the use of natural hallucinogens known as entheogens—mainly, mushrooms containing the psychoactive chemical psilocybin. For Hodges, “Mushrooms are the origin of all religion.”
CULTIVATOR
Published by El Tecolote 2022
Niko Summers — a 5th generation healer and cultivator in San Francisco — discovered the healing properties of plants early on in his childhood.
“The first time my mom took me out to the garden, I was five and what they were learning about me was in order to deal with my trauma and the things that had happened, plants were really healing,” said Summers. “As an herbalist and as someone that also wants to help people, I’ve just learned that helping myself first has been the main key in being able to do that.”
Sumapaz
Officially selected for 2022 Festival de Cine Independiente de Sogamoso
Framed between mountains and fog, a group of farmers debate with the Colombian government on how to keep their livelihood while protecting the environment.