Six talented filmmakers will have their visions realized at an upcoming screening on June 11 at the Del Mar Theater. Places That Hold Us: Notes for a Future Memory features six documentaries from the graduate students in the Department of Film and Digital Media’s Social Documentation (SocDoc) M.F.A. Program. Their works cover social, environmental and political topics and aim at bettering the world through visual representation and storytelling.
This year marks the 14th anniversary of SocDoc which has seen its graduates go on to win awards and show their works in festivals around the world. Unlike similar graduate programs, SocDoc gives students two years to hone in on one story, allowing them to capture an in-depth exploration of their chosen topic. Films this year reach from Santa Cruz to locations around the world and cover topics including: gentrification on the Oaxacan Coast, immigration to and from Cambodia, as well as anti-Asian hate post-COVID-19.
“These students are very talented. They come from a diversity of backgrounds and they’ve got a diversity of stories to tell,” says Michael Lindsey, the graduate programs coordinator for the Film and Digital Media Department. This year, and throughout SocDoc’s history, students come from both local and international backgrounds and bring with them unique stories rooted in personal experience.
“The work of this year’s cohort shows a profound international reach and relevancy. These filmmakers are telling stories that affect people around the globe and are doing so from a strong foothold in California. They really reflect where Santa Cruz is in the world today,” says Peter Limbrick, professor and chair of Film and Digital Media (FDM). The six films grapple with the personal and the public from Em Butler’s conversations with her mother in Cat’s Tale to Catalina Jeanneret Calderón’s exploration of modern day Santiago, Chile.
Each film will run for approximately 20 minutes and the screenings will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers. This free event will capture the hearts and minds of the community, while raising awareness about issues that affect a broad audience.
“This year’s MFA screening is a very special and beautiful group of films that, together, model profound ways of being with people in the world,” says Irene Lusztig, a professor in FDM and the director of graduate studies for SocDoc. “These films show incredible commitment to working collaboratively with communities, participants, and places in ways that I think are truly remarkable.”
Artists and Films
Em Butler is a writer, filmmaker and community organizer from Long Beach, California. Of Cambodian-English ancestry and as a first-generation Khmer-American, her documentary work broadly centers Southeast Asia and the ways multigenerational storytelling can push forward anti-imperialist movements (supported by performative fiction and autoethnography narrative lineages). She will be learning Khmer this summer through University of Wisconsin’s SEASSI.
Cat’s Tale – A 2nd generation Khmer-American femme documents her mother’s journey back to Cambodia for the first time in over 40 years. Through the form of both a letter and essay, the film translates the in-between and intergenerational memories of time, land, and body.
Catalina Jeanneret Calderón is a Chilean researcher, photographer and filmmaker. An archive enthusiast and hopeless romantic, she uses photography and film to activate personal and collective memories, blending archival materials with ethnographic approaches.
La ciudad sin ti – An essay film that invites you to see the history of modern Santiago through visual fragments. Archival footage, love letters, and street conversations reveal how the practice of writing love letters is tied to memory, place, and resistance in this city.
Matte Hewitt is an interdisciplinary filmmaker and researcher from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their work integrates environmental humanities, critical Indigenous studies, and feminist science and technology studies. They are a Norris Center Art and Science Fellow and participate in the UCSC Science and Justice Center Training Program. Matte holds a BFA in Sculpture from Temple University.
SHIMMERING – A film that moves with Hummingbird as a luminous guide, inviting an embodied engagement with place-based knowledge. Threading together interwoven narratives and learning lessons from Coyote, the film traces the entanglement between the study of hummingbird biology and the rise of military drone technology.
Jiayi Li (Kayi) is a Chinese-American film director from the San Francisco Bay Area. She earned her undergraduate degree in Film Studies from UC Berkeley and has since focused on journalism and documentary filmmaking. Fluent in Cantonese, Mandarin, and Toishanese, she is committed to telling stories of the Asian American community’s rich history and ongoing struggles.
Guardians of Oakland Chinatown – An observational-participatory documentary on the ongoing struggle against anti-Asian hate since COVID-19. Told from a community filmmaker’s perspective, it highlights physical and cultural guardians working to protect residents and preserve the resilience and heritage of Chinatown today.
Jamilli Pacheco-Urquiza is a first generation Mexican-American filmmaker and researcher from New Jersey. His research and documentary work is interested in uncovering the layers that mesh migration, displacement, food, and tourism together. He holds a BA in Cinema Studies from Rutgers University-New Brunswick and was a Development Fellow at Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS in NYC.
Bajo el Sol – During a summer spent with his grandmother on the Oaxacan Coast, a filmmaker explores the layered relationship Puerto Escondido has with tourism through conversations around labor, water, paradise, and gentrification with tourists and locals alike.
Maleah Welsh is a documentary filmmaker and photographer working in both analog and digital formats. Originally from Santa Cruz, California, she focuses on intimate, story-driven work that reflects the complexity of everyday life. Her practice is rooted in collaboration, often working closely with individuals and communities to explore themes of personal history, home, belonging and collective memory.
HomeTown HomeLess – A poetic exploration of land and home set in Santa Cruz’s Potrero district. The film follows unhoused poet Momma Shannan and her community as they move through shifting encampments. Amid uncertainty, a group of women come together to talk about life, love and loss.
June 11, 2025 – 7:00 PM
Del Mar Theater
1124 Pacific Ave
4415
Santa Cruz, CA 95060
Free and open to the public