CREW
Celine Parreñas Shimizu (she/her)
– Writer, Director, Producer
Film scholar and filmmaker, Celine Parreñas Shimizu is Dean of the Arts and Distinguished Professor of Film and Digital Media at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She wrote the books The Movies of Racial Childhoods (2024), The Proximity of Other Skins (2020), Straitjacket Sexualities (2012) and The Hypersexuality of Race (2007) which won Best Book in Cultural Studies from the Association of Asian American Studies in 2009 and co-edited The Feminist Porn Book (2013) and The Unwatchability of Whiteness (2018). Her latest films The Celine Archive (2020) and 80 Years Later: On Japanese American Racial Inheritance in the Aftermath of World War II Family Incarceration both won several festival awards for historical documentary and excellence in directing and are distributed by Women Make Movies.
Janet Chen (Ma) (she/her)
– Producer
Janet Chen (Ma) is a film and multimedia director, producer and educator. Her documentary, narrative and emerging media and films have been featured in film festivals, conferences and community events nationally. She has been on the producing team for award-winning documentaries and series that have broadcasted and streamed on PBS, including 80 YEARS LATER by Celine Parreñas Shimizu. Janet was the assistant director and instructor for the UCLA Center for EthnoCommunications. She is a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and she was a mentor at Outfest and the founding manager for A-Doc (Asian American Documentary Network). Janet holds a BA in Film from UC Irvine and a MFA in Film & Digital Media: Social Documentation from UC Santa Cruz. She is currently the Multimedia Producer at UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center.
Priya Vashist (she/ they)
– Co-Producer
Priya Vashist is a filmmaker and an Assistant Professor of Film at Old Dominion University. Priya’s film work focuses on social justice and representation of queer South Asian immigrants on screen. Priya's films and screenplays have won awards at and have been featured at several film festivals and conferences. Priya received her MFA in Cinema Production from San Francisco State University.
Jacqueline Chan (she/her)
– Director of Photography
Jacqueline Chan is a recent graduate of UCLA's MFA program. In 2017, she obtained her degrees in Visual Arts – Media and Art History from UC San Diego, where she studied under filmmakers of the French New Wave, and grounded her film practice in experimental modes. Born and raised in the minority-majority city of San Francisco, she is interested in the stories of those around her—whose lives are so vivid but are never seen. She hopes to encapsulate a cinema that is at once unique to a kind of Asian-American experience and yet universally and emotionally resonant.
Nhung Nguyen (she/her)
– Production Sound Mixer
Nhung Nguyen is a Vietnamese American independent documentary filmmaker who focuses on intimate portraits of female sexuality through the lens of race and social politics. Coming as a Fulbright scholar to take the Master of Fine Arts program in Documentary producing/directing at UCLA, she has made two films that got recognition from film festivals, including the Seattle Asian American Film Festival, Culver City Film Festival, and Chicago International Film Festival.
Chantal Trazo (she/her)
– Production Designer
Chantal Trazo is a designer and filmmaker based in the bay area. She is passionate about exploring portrayals of Asian + Asian American identity, LGBTQAI+ identity, and mental health in the media. Chantal hopes her work can contribute to more inclusivity and uplift communities.
Jing Niu (she/her)
– Editor
Jing Niu is a filmmaker who loves to call arthouse fantasy her “home”. Born in China but raised in the American South, Jing pulls from her own lived experience to tell new captivating stories. Her work on the “Everything, Everywhere All at Once” post team gave her the opportunity to attend the 2023 Oscars, and she’s thrilled to have helped edit JLO’s forthcoming visual album. When not working on films, Jing is making ceramics, learning to surf and exploring the neighborhoods of Los Angeles with her two very large Akita dogs.
Rosa Sungjoo Park (she/ her)
– Post- Production Sound Editor, Re-recorder and Mixer
Rosa Sungjoo Park is a sound artist and designer whose research interest is centered on the study of the physicality of sound, experimental film and sound, and expanded cinema. Park's creative practice is deeply grounded in her cultural identity, memories, and religion, and her work has been exhibited in galleries and theaters internationally. Park’s film music and sound design have been screened at many film festivals, including the Toronto Documentary Feature and Short Film Festival, São Paulo International Film Festival, and Hong Kong Palace Museum, among others. She currently serves as an Assistant Professor in the School of Cinema at San Francisco State University.
Theodore S. Gonzalves (he/him)
– Composer
Dr. Theodore S. Gonzalves is a curator of Asian Pacific American history at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. He previously served as director of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. A Fulbright Scholar, Dr. Gonzalves has received senior fellowships at the Smithsonian Institution, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the Library of Congress. He was elected the 21st president of the Association for Asian American Studies in 2018, appointed to the Organization of American Historians' Distinguished Lectureship Program in 2023, and is currently a member of the board of directors of the American Council of Learned Societies. Gonzalves’ music has been featured at the Asian American Jazz Festival and the Cultural Center of the Philippines. He has composed for independent films for the past three decades.
Pamela Rodríguez-Montero (she/her/ella) – Costume Designer
Pamela Rodríguez-Montero is a scenographer, educator, and visual artist from Costa Rica. She is the Assistant Professor of Costume Design at The University of California, Santa Cruz. Pamela has designed for a variety of venues and disciplines nationally and internationally.
Carla Grace Fajardo (she/her)
– Makeup Artist
Carla Grace Fajardo is a queer Filipina-American filmmaker, performing artist, and makeup artist in the SF Bay Area. She graduated with a B.A. in Cinema from San Francisco State University where she started her filmmaking journey doing gore SFX makeup for student films. She is currently a freelance hair and makeup artist and has been contracted with various Bay Area companies and brands such as Google, Box.com, and Benefit Cosmetics. Most of her work has been with independent filmmakers on short narrative films and music videos since 2021. Carla has passion for stories about contemporary queer love and LGBTQ history and has been in collaboration in producing and performing with various film and theater companies such as Bindlestiff Studios, Blood Lush Films, Lost Dream Pictures, and more recently Jasmine x Lavender.
Marnie Salvani (she/her)
– Production Manager and First Assistant Director
Marnie Salvani is a Los-Angeles based filmmaker and daughter of Filipinx immigrants. She gravitates toward stories that impact and connect human beings through understanding and compassion. Marnie's thesis film at UCLA made during the pandemic, as American as it Gets, screened at Seattle Asian American Film Festival, Immigration Film Festival, and SF DocFest. She is currently working as an assistant editor on a feature documentary about BTS Army (and dreams about attending BTS' future concert).