Caroline Cabading
Caroline Cabading, a 4th generation Filipina San Franciscan, has been the Executive Director of the Manilatown Heritage Foundation and the International Hotel Manilatown Center since 2015. As a film producer her Manilatown/Chinatown-related credits include, “Rise of the I-Hotel” (2005), the Center for Asian American Media award winner, “Chinatown” (2017) and the San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) funded, “The Al Robles Express” (2019). Her current production and directorial debut, “Manilatown Manang” is a SFAC and For Us, By Us funded documentary about former I-Hotel activist tenant Jeanette Lazam returning to live in the new International Hotel Senior Residences nearly 42 years after her 1977 eviction.
Megan Martinez Goltz
Megan Martinez Goltz is a queer Chicanx filmmaker based in Santa Cruz, California. Megan brings Indigenous traditions to the foreground through collective story-telling and cataloging traditional ways of cultivating food, medicine, and music. In every aspect of their work, Megan creates space for healing by honoring heritage and bringing together community. They value respect and celebration – for elders as they pass on their teachings, for queer folks as they share their stories, and for a part of themselves that has been lost to cultural assimilation. By weaving vibrant histories across generations, borders, and languages, Megan paves a pathway to ancestral connection. They are dedicated to sharing stories that celebrate the authentic identities of individuals in ways that invite inclusion for folks to feel a sense of connection and belonging.
Supporting various projects across North America, Megan works as a director, editor and sound recordist. They hold a Bachelor of Arts in Film & Digital Media from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Megan is currently collaborating with cultural organizations to share legacy stories while they complete production on their personal legacy short film titled Bienvenida Abuelita.
Chad Santo Tomas
Chad Santo Tomas is a self-taught filmmaker with a focus on documentaries that focus on the AAPI experience with themes of identity, culture, and belonging. With an eclectic background in photography and neuroscience, a burgeoning side-hustle in food photography and photojournalism brought him to discover deeper and richer nuances in the intersection between humanity, food, and culture and catalyzed the pivot to wanting to tell more enriching stories. Aside from documentaries, Chad’s work is in the food and beverage space, focusing on narrative-driven branded content. In his spare time he likes slowing down with vinyl and medium format film photography.
Mauro Sifuentes
Mauro Sifuentes is a queer, nonbinary, and two-spirit Californian of mixed and Indigenous descent, with lifelong commitments to learning and unlikely friendships. After a twenty year career in the field of nonprofit and public education, Mauro is emerging as a community storyteller who holds intergenerational and multiracial healing at the core of their creative endeavors. Mauro’s work calls forth uncomfortable histories of grief through visual arts, allowing us to sit with fidgety phantoms, holding them close with generous curiosity.
Sé Sullivan
Sé Sullivan is an activist, scholar, and emerging filmmaker who cares deeply about gender and racial justice. Sé is a queer elder who survived the UCLA Gender Identity Research Clinic’s conversion therapy experiments in the 1960s and 70s, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic of the 1980s and 90s. They find great joy in intergenerational storytelling, home beautification projects, and their pup named Blu. Sé also feels immense freedom when riding their Harley with the wind in their face, particularly during visits to their ancestral homeland, Ireland.
Erika Staud
Erika Staud is a DP from the Bay Area. She comes from a strong background in gaffing and documentary filmmaking. She enjoys helping to shed light on stories of people not often given the chance and using cinematic visuals to capture authentic moments and help convey their stories. She works on various types of productions, including documentaries, branded content, and commercials.
Priyanka Suryaneni
Priyanka Suryaneni is a Bay Area documentary filmmaker with a wide array of video-producing experience in the U.S. and India. Before moving to the U.S., she was a media entrepreneur and worked on multi-lingual and multi-medium stories. She is passionate about telling character-centric stories that highlight non-mainstream and underreported issues.
