Producer: Lisa Yadao
Assistant Editor: Irene Yadao
Director/DP/Editor: Erick Kwiecien
In post-production: Maggie Mackay works relentlessly to resurrect Vidiots, a legendary and influential nonprofit video store—to preserve the 40-year legacy of its female founders Patty Pollinger and Cathy Tauber, and spotlight their impact on filmmaking and popular culture. In the process, she overcomes personal tragedy, and learns to recognize and accept her own power.
Producer: Yadao Twins
Director: Lamia Lazrak
In pre-production: Nestled in the heart of Marrakech’s medina is a family restaurant set in a 200-year-old multi-generational home inhabited by capricious yet powerful jinns. Restaurant owner Kenza must confront generational legacies, family conflicts, personal fears, and the resentment of the jinns as she navigates the difficult decision to sell. Dar Marjana offers an intimate and transcendent portrayal of what it means to let go.
Additional Editor: Irene Yadao
Director: Ian Cheney
Executive Producers: Greg Boustead, Jessica Harrop, Robyn Metcalfe, Werner Herzog
Producers: Meredith Desalazar, Manette Pottle, Rebecca Taylor
Cinematographer: Ezra Wolfinger
THE ARC OF OBLIVION explores a quirk of humankind: in a universe that erases its tracks, we humans are hellbent on leaving a trace. Set against the backdrop of the filmmaker's quixotic quest to build an ark in a field in Maine, the film heads far afield – to salt mines in the Alps, fjords in the Arctic, and ancient libraries in the Sahara – to illuminate the strange world of archives, record-keeping, and memory. Playfully weaving stop-motion animation, spellbinding cinematography and fascinating interviews from the director's inner circle and experts in the fields of science, culture and art – including documentarians Werner Herzog and Kirsten Johnson – THE ARC OF OBLIVION reveals how nature inspires the human drive behind filmmaking.
Assistant Editor: Irene Yadao
Director: Ian Cheney
In post-production: A global exploration of the centrality of observation to science and the human experience.
Producer/Director: Yadao Twins and Michelle Sampior
Roots & Wings is a documentary series featuring women-of-color chefs who use food as a conduit for cultural awareness and as a means of perpetuating their cultural traditions. Episode 1: Yana Gilbuena was officially selected for: CAAMFest, Silicon Valley Asian Pacific Film Fest, LAAPFF, Boston Women’s Film Festival, San Francisco International Festival of Short Films, Reel Sisters of the Diaspora Film Festival, Across the Globe, All Asian Independent Film Festival, Food Film Festival.
Episode 2 (Irene Yoo) and Episode 3 (Parisa Parnian) are currently screening at film festivals nationwide.
Editor: Irene Yadao
Director: Álvaro Torres Crespo
DP: Álvaro Torres Crespo
Producers: Eli Kao, Josh Povec
Co-Producers: Brooke Saias, Camille Gunderson
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Contact for full version of video.
From the ReelEarth Collection
Located on Costa Rica’s Pacific Coast, the city of Puntarenas sits upon a peninsula in the Gulf of Nicoya. A popular seaside getaway and an important fishing port, well-known to locals and travelers alike, Puntarenas is also home to a century-old municipal market. Within the market’s labyrinth of humble stalls, 65-year-old Camacho runs a shrimp-peeling business. She has done this work almost her entire life, depending on the luck of the catch and her own work ethic to support her family. Unlucky in love, she hopes for good fortune as she plays the lottery. This moving portrait by filmmaker Álvaro Torres-Crespo is a reminder that sometimes “only the ladle knows the problems in the pot."
Co-Producer: Irene Yadao
Director: Ian Cheney, Sharon Shattuck
PICTURE A SCIENTIST chronicles the groundswell of researchers who are writing a new chapter for women scientists. Biologist Nancy Hopkins, chemist Raychelle Burks, and geologist Jane Willenbring lead viewers on a journey deep into their own experiences in the sciences, ranging from brutal harassment to years of subtle slights. Along the way, from cramped laboratories to spectacular field stations, we encounter scientific luminaries - including social scientists, neuroscientists, and psychologists - who provide new perspectives on how to make science itself more diverse, equitable, and open to all.
Producer/Director: Yadao Twins and Michelle Sampior
Editor: Irene Yadao and Michelle Sampior
We wanted to know how everyone has been coping during this pandemic—a time defined not just by physical isolation and anxiety but also economic hardship, rampant racism, and the Black Lives Matter movement. We wanted to hear about the hardships they’re enduring, the challenges and fears they’re navigating, the joys they’re discovering, and the ways in which they’re trying to make sense of this world. We asked friends from all across the globe to send us a video check-in for a series of short films we're calling Pandemic Shorts.
