Behind the Lens

For his short film ‘Cherry,’ filmmaker Eugene Kim pulled from his own memories of growing up in 90s Daly City, California, when Filipino DJs were pioneering a new style, B-Boys competed at car shows and everyone knew they were part of a historic moment in music history.

The narrative film director draws on her own family experiences to portray innocence and resilience in her children-centered films.

The Taiwanese-born director and lifelong kung-fu aficionado has worked on martial arts shorts, music videos and a Sundance-selected heist film, 'Don't Be A Hero'.

Growing up, director and writer Nijla Mu'min didn't see nuanced representations of girls like her, so she created her own with her semi-autobiographical feature 'Jinn'.

Documentary filmmakers Quinn Costello, Chris Metzler and Jeff Springer spent four years following giant swamp rats decimating the Louisiana coastline—and the local hunters committed to stopping them.

Pamela Chavez draws on memories of her own family's migration from Costa Rica to the U.S. in her animated short 'Caracol Cruzando'.

Leo Herrera's film honors more than 18,500 'Fathers'—notable artists and activists—whose lives were claimed by the AIDS epidemic in the '80s and '90s.

Inspired in part by the HBO series 'The Wire' and drawing on his own experiences with law enforcement, Bay Area filmmaker Peter Nicks of 'The Force' spent two years embedded with the Oakland Police, capturing the most turbulent period in the department's history.

When Fran Guijarro made a short film about a man who had experienced nearly two decades of homelessness, he never imagined it would be the beginning of a 10-year-long documentary project that transformed the lives of everyone involved.