Our Team
Brenda Avila-Hanna - Director/Producer
Brenda Avila-Hanna is an award-winning filmmaker and educator. Born and raised in Mexico City, her films mostly focus on transnational immigrant stories between Latin America and the United States. Her work has been showcased at HotDocs Toronto, Lakino Berlin and Cine Las Americas International Film Festival. Brenda is a recent Fellow for BAVC National MediaMaker, the National Minority Consortia Lab through LPB and the NALIP Media Market. She is also a member of New Day Films, an independent filmmaker collective bringing social justice films to educators. She currently serves in the collective’s Steering Committee as the team lead for Equity & Representation. Brenda is also the Line Producer for the Cal Humanities recipient “No Place to Grow”, a programmer for the Watsonville Film Festival and a Mentor for the Latino Film Institute’s Youth Cinema Project. Her latest work as a Producer, “The Undocumented Lawyer” will premiere at Tribeca Film Festival in 2020. Brenda received a Master’s degree in Social Documentation from UC Santa Cruz in 2013 and is still an active member of the film and education community in the area.
Kati Greaney - Director of Photography/Producer
Kati Greaney is a filmmaker, photographer, and Director of Photography based in the Bay Area. After years of working as a commercial and documentary photographer, Kati undertook a Masters degree in Social Documentation from UC Santa Cruz where she created her first short documentary film entitled “Guajiros.” The film followed two Haitian agronomists as they travelled through the Cuban countryside and learned about sustainable farming. The film screened at the St. Louis Film Festival, Watsonville Film Festival, San Jose International Film Festival, and California International Shorts Film Festival. Kati is a Director of Photography for the interactive documentary and mixed media project “Inside the Distance” directed by Sharon Daniel, who was awarded the prestigious Rockefeller/Tribeca Film Festival New Media Fellowship for her work. She teaches a course on Storytelling for the Digital Age at the University of Santa Cruz, California.
Cassandra Casasola - Co-Producer
Originally from Oaxaca, Mexico, her interest in making movies started in 2012 while taking her first experimental cinematography workshop. She’s worked in the Production and Photography areas for the Campamento Audiovisual Itinerante, La Calenda Audiovisual, OaxacaCine, Agencia Bengala, Bambú Audiovisual and in a variety of film productions. She received the prestigious Programa a Jóvenes Creadores 2017-2018 offered by the Fondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes in Mexico, the Estímulo a Creadores Cinematográficos 2017 for screenwriting and the Estímulo a Creadores Cinematográficos 2018 for Project Development given by the Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía for her first documentary feature “Through Tola”. Her latest short film, “Tuyuku”, was awarded best short film at the prestigious Morelia Film Festival in 2019.
Melina Tupa- Lead Editor/Post-Production Producer
Melina Tupa is an award-winning Argentinean and Brazilian journalist and documentary filmmaker, specializing in human rights and Latino issues across the world. She worked for five years as an associate TV producer, three of those years at Turner Broadcasting System.
Melina holds a Bachelor in Journalism degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina and a Master of Journalism degree from UC Berkeley, focusing on Documentary Filmmaking and Photojournalism. At the Berkeley J-School, Melina was awarded a TV/Documentary Merit Fellowship and the Carlos M. Castañeda Journalism Scholarship.
Her documentary thesis “The Search”, tells the story of Estela de Carlotto, the president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, whose grandson was abducted during the Argentinean military dictatorship. The documentary is a Student Academy Award finalist, a recipient of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Excellence in Journalism Award for Student Special Project in addition to several other awards, and has been featured in different film festivals across the world.
Eugenia Renteria- Assistant Editor/Additional Camera, Associate Producer
Eugenia is a Watsonville-based director, cinematographer and editor. Most of her work is centered around her life experiences as an immigrant woman. Born and raised in a small town in Zacatecas, Mexico she moved to California when she was 12 years old and that’s when her interest in filmmaking started. She attended CSU Monterey Bay and graduated with a B.A. in Cinematic Arts & Technology. Shortly after, she co-founded her production company Inspira Studios. With Inspira she gets to produce content for businesses and organizations, as well as, produce her own stories..
Alejandro Santana Jr. - Additional Camera/ Associate Producer
Alejandro was born and raised in Watsonville CA. He graduated from UCSC in 2014 with a degree in film and digital media where he won the Dean's Art Award for his documentary, Midnight Warrior. In 2015, Alex went on to work for two television news stations as a Production Assistant: KSBW Channel 8 and NBC Bay Area. After almost a year of working in the news industry, Alex left to work for the Diversity Center where currently wears two professional hats: Communications Coordinator and Co Youth Program Coordinator. In addition to his work at the Diversity Center, Alex remains active with film by volunteering his time with the Watsonville Film Festival's Program and Communications Committees and the Digital Nest's Film Associates program.
André Perez - Impact Producer
André is a Latinx oral historian, educator, filmmaker, and community organizer whose work centers collaborative storytelling with marginalized communities. He founded the Transgender Oral History Project in 2007,and created traveling multimedia historical exhibit in 2009. Director of I Live for Trans Education, André spearheaded the development of a grassroots multimedia curriculum. Between 2013-2016, André has recorded over 500 interviews as part of StoryCorps, broadcasting 50 segments on NPR and WBEZ. In 2015, he was named one of the voices that will change the face of public media by the Association of Independent Radio; in 2016, he appeared on NewCity’s 50 influential filmmakers in Chicago; and in 2017 he participated in BritDoc’s Queer Social Impact Producer Lab.For the past decade, Perez has pursued his passion for documentary alongside serving his community as Director of Marketing for the Trans Lifeline and consulting to develop high impact social media interventions for HIV prevention and transgender employment. Summer of 2016, André premiered his first docu-series, Been T/Here, on OpenTV Beta. André is the Director of America in Transition, a Sundance-backed documentary series and community engagement campaign exploring community, family, and social issues for trans people of color across the Country.
Behind the Scenes
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