Brenda Avila-Hanna - Cine Se Puede Lead

Brenda Avila-Hanna is an award-winning Mexican filmmaker and educator who has lived in the CA Central Coast for over a decade. Her work has been showcased at HotDocs, Lakino Berlin, Frameline, HBO, Fusion Network and more. She is a member-owner of the film distribution cooperative New Day Films, where she recently served in the Steering Committee as the first team lead for Equity & Representation. Brenda was in the inaugural cohort of DOC NYC’s “Documentary Industry New Leaders” and a recent Rockwood/Just Films Fellow. Brenda is also an active member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, a co-director of the Video Consortium Mexico and has worked as a reviewer for film grants with multiple organizations including the IDA and BAVC. She has volunteered with the Watsonville Film Festival for 7 years as a programmer and has recently joined the team as an Artist Development lead for the festival’s Cine Se Puede filmmaking fellowship.

Janet Chen - Reviewer

Janet Chen is a filmmaker and educator. She was the Assistant Director for UCLA Center for EthnoCommunications, where she co-taught documentary courses with Renee Tajima-Peña. Her latest short film, "Phoenix Bakery: Sweets for the Sweet" has screened at festivals nationally. She is also a leadership team member for the Asian American Documentary Network and a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia. Currently, she is a Teaching Assistant and MFA candidate in Film and Digital Media: Social Documentation at UC Santa Cruz.
Janet is honored to support the Watsonville Film Festival and its inaugural Cine Se Puede Fellowship to empower filmmakers of color and to amplify stories from underrepresented communities. Thanks to Consuelo, Brenda and Lucia for being great collaborators.

Lucía Alvarado Cantero - Reviewer

Lucía is a first-generation scholar, educator, feminist, and arTivist from Central America. She taught linguistics and discourse analysis for several years at the University of Costa Rica before moving to Santa Cruz, California to pursue a PhD in Education with an emphasis in Social Documentation and Animation. Her work focuses on the education for in transit migrant children from Central America. My lifelong search for an academic community with genuine roots in the community and the arts found a home in the Watsonville Film Festival and the Cine Se Puede project. I am honored and grateful to contribute to this initiative, and learn from community leaders and filmmakers, Consuelo, Brenda and Janet; and young filmmakers of color from the community.