Film
Te Mana o Teao (The strength of the World)
Te Mana o Teao is a 15-minute short documentary set in Rapa Nui — Easter Island — the most remote inhabited island in the world. It tells the story of José Teao, an indigenous Rapa Nui underwater hunter and freediver who lost a leg in an accident and spent years in darkness, unable to swim and provide for his family. But the ocean kept calling him back. Te Mana o Teao follows his journey of resilience and spiritual renewal, where the sea transforms loss into purpose and power.
There’s No Place
When Juan - a self-taught tech worker on the verge of landing a full-time offer - gets a call that his older brother Junior is released from prison, he drives 400 miles to haul him home down the Northern California coast. What starts as an obligation becomes something neither of them expected: a darkly comic and bittersweet collision between two men shaped by a world built for neither of them. Written & Directed by: Jesus Beltran Produced by: Alan Luna & Rick Porras
Last Witness
Story Structure: Some secrets refuse to stay buried, and some wounds never fully heal. In 2010, Luuk Meijer, a researcher at the Anne Frank House, discovers Max Heppner’s memoir, I Live in a Chickenhouse. The book implicates Luuk’s father in a wartime murder. Meanwhile, 11-year-old Theo van Daalen unearths an artifact of past violence that sets him on an obsessive journey to uncover the region’s hidden past. As their independent searches intertwine, flashbacks reveal the same world in 1942, where the Dutch Resistance sought to protect Jewish refugees, including two boys, Felix Goldman and Max Heppner, and their families. When [...]
The Rug Dealer in The Land of Mirages
The Rug Dealer in the Land of Mirages is a feature-length Sufi-Western and allegorical folktale. When a silent mystic's rug is mistaken for a lost treasure, he is forced into flight across sentient dreamlike landscapes. Blending myth, spirituality, and ecological themes, the film explores greed, belonging, and transformation through a poetic journey inspired by the folklore and reimagined visual traditions of the SSWANA region.
Through Riders: Riding Through Grief Across the Gobi Desert
After devastating personal losses, three women across three generations come together to ride across Mongolia on a four-month horseback journey across Mongolia and through the vast Gobi Desert, one of the most remote and unforgiving landscapes on Earth. Through Riders follows their shared expedition as an act of survival, reflection, and connection. Moving on horseback through extreme terrain, the riders confront pain and grief not in isolation but in motion, discovering how landscape, animals, and deep friendship can hold space for trauma, death, and the search for meaning. The film is co-created with the herder families who guide the journey [...]
Like Father, Like Sons
A film about the fathers we lose and the brothers we find. "Like Father, Like Sons" is a feature film that follows three brothers who barely know each other. When their absent father dies, his last wish forces them onto a cross-country road trip together, and over those miles three strangers slowly become a family. It is funny, it is honest, and it is drawn from the real lives of the two filmmakers who wrote it. This is a Black story, told by Black filmmakers, about something universal: what it means to be a father, what it costs to be [...]
Roll Fog
Documentary feature film, currently in production. ROLL FOG starts at the historic Kezar Stadium, home of San Francisco City FC (SF City FC), the oldest supporter-owned football club in the US. The sudden arrival of a billionaire-backed copycat team displaces SF City FC from their home, reflecting decades of gentrification faced by the city’s working class. We witness the fervor of the club’s supporters—made up of fútbol fanatics, punk rockers, high schoolers, fighters, and anti-racist skinheads—as they join forces to fight back and lay claim to their city in defiance of those seeking to push them out. Support: 2026 SFFILM [...]
The Man with No Eyes
The Man With No Eyes documents a corporation's failed first attempt at artificial love. Following her husband Otis’s near-fatal car accident, Asha is coerced into being the first client of an ominous new company, Endless Love. Their service provides replacement partners for widows and soon-to-be widows, only to cause a horrifying confrontation when the real Otis and his replacement surprise her on their wedding anniversary.
Object Permanence
Psychologist Jean Piaget’s concept of object permanence involves the understanding that people and things still exist even when you can’t see or hear them. The short sci-fi film OBJECT PERMANENCE explores the human psyche's complex relationship with presence and our understanding of our own reality. Life is transformed for best friends Drexxceya and Echo when Drexciya’s employer, the California Aeronautics and Space Agency (CASA), reveals that it now possesses an interstellar object that has reached Earth. Echo finally finds the fulfillment he’s so desperate for in a connection with Drexxceya’s colleague, Jency; and in turn, Drexxceya finally gets the coveted [...]
Year of the Cat
YEAR OF THE CAT follows filmmaker Tony Nguyen on an extraordinary quest to solve the mystery of his father, lost in the chaos of the Fall of Saigon 50 years ago. Told as an investigative home movie, this powerful documentary weaves together moments of humor and heartache, offering an intimate look at how the children of refugees are shaped by war and loss. As Tony delves into his family’s history, the film reveals the emotional lengths we go to in confronting the ghosts of the past—and the possibility of healing as we reclaim and transform our futures.
