The Crew
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AURORA GUERRERO - DIRECTOR & WRITER
Aurora Guerrero has over 10 years of filmmaking experience. She directed award-winning short narrative films, including PURA LENGUA (official selection 2005 Sundance Film Festival) and VIERNES GIRL (winner of the 2005 HBO/NYLIFF short film competition). Based on the strength of her first feature length script, MOSQUITA Y MARI, Aurora was awarded the 2005 Sundance/Ford Fellowship, the 2005 Paul Robeson Development Grant, was selected to participate in the 2005 Sundance Native/Indigenous Lab; 2006 Tribeca All Access Filmmaker Program; 2009 Film Independent Producer’s Lab. Most recently, MOSQUITA Y MARI was awarded the 2011 SFFS/KRF grant, LG Cinema 3D Fellowship, and the Sundance Institute/Time Warner Foundation Fellowship for post production.
Her accomplishments as an emerging writer/director earned her a slot in Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film.” She has also had the honor of assisting directors Patricia Cardoso (REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES, 2002) and Peter Bratt (LA MISSION, 2009). Aurora received her B.A. in Psychology and Chicano Studies from UC Berkeley and her M.F.A in Film Directing from Cal Arts in Los Angeles.
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CHAD BURRIS - PRODUCER
Burris is founder of Indion Group of Entertainment Companies. Chad developed, through the first Indion company, the country’s first private film incentive in the country for the state of Oklahoma. That incentive program was instrumental in financing a number of feature films there and s bringing film production into the state. Chad’s influence in the film industry is attributed to his work, producing award winning films including Goodnight Irene, Four Sheets to the Wind, and Barking Water by Sterlin Harjo. Chad produced the award-winning short film Shimasani for Navajo director Blackhorse Lowe and Executive Produced the Michael Winterbottom feature The Killer Inside Me, starring Jessica Alba, Kate Hudson and Casey Affleck. Both of those films premiered at Sundance 2010. In 2011 he also executive produced the directorial debut film for Famke Janssen, Bringing Up Bobby, and more recently the Nick Cassavetes feature Yellow. Chad’s films have collectively screened at some the world’s most prestigious festivals including Sundance, Tribeca, New Directors/New Films, Toronto, Cannes and Venice. His latest film, Mosquita y Mari has been selected to premier at the Sundance Film Festival in 2012 and he is nominated for Film Independent’s Spirit Award for the Piaget’s 2012 Producer of the Year. Chad won the Mark Silverman Award for New Producers from the Sundance Institute in 2007.
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JIM MCKAY - EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Jim McKay is co-founder, along with Michael Stipe, of C-Hundred Film Corp. McKay’s debut film GIRLS TOWN (1996) received the Filmmakers Trophy and a Special Jury Prize for Collaboration at the Sundance Film Festival. His career as a director has since given birth to numerous awardwinning films including OUR SONG (2000 Sundance Film Festival, New Directors/New Films), EVERYDAY PEOPLE (2004 HBO) and ANGEL (2005 Toronto Film Festival 2005 and premiered on HBO 2006).
While as a producer McKay has an equally impressive slate of films to his credit, including AMERICAN MOVIE, (Chris Smith and Sarah Price), SPRING FORWARD (Tom Gilroy), STRANGER INSIDE (Cheryl Dunye), LA BODA and ESCUELA (Hannah Weyer), BROTHER TO BROTHER (Rodney Evans). He is currently in development on MOSQUITA Y MARI (Aurora Guerrero). McKay was a Rockefeller Fellow in 2003 and a Guggenheim Fellow in 2004.
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CHARLENE AGABAO - CO-PRODUCER
Charlene Agabao graduated from Columbia College in 2005, with a degree in Film & Video Studies. She was the Associate Producer for Nice Threads (2006), which was featured in the 2007 Asian American Showcase at the Gene Siskel Center. Her short piece American Beauties (2007), which she produced, wrote, and directed was featured on the Dove website for their "Pure Beauty" campaign. In 2009, she was Associate Producer for 5 Stick Films, on Peter Bratt's La Mission, which premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Later that year, she was selected to participate in the FIND Producer's Lab with MOSQUITA Y MARI, where she pitched the project at the "Pitch Me" panel event to over 200 people at AFM.
Along with MOSQUITA Y MARI, she is currently producing Sydney Freeland's Drunktown's Finest, which was selected for the 2010 Sundance Screenwriter's Lab and was awarded the 2009 New Mexico "New Visions Filmmaker" Award.As a first-generation Filipino- American, Charlene was intimately drawn to the immigrant parent-child dynamics of MOSQUITA Y MARI, and related to the story through her own personal experiences with "intense female friendships," and "awkward adolescent romance." As a woman of color in the film industry, Charlene hopes to continue to work on future projects that embrace unique and often unheard voices in cinematic storytelling.
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MAGELA CROSIGNANI - CINEMATOGRAPHER
Magela Crosignani is originally from Uruguay and holds a BFA degree in Film from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and a Masters degree in Cinematography from the American Film Institute. Since graduation Magela has shot a number of feature films as Director of Photography, including “The Imperialists are Still Alive”, which was named an Official Selection of the 2010
Sundance Film Festival, starring Cannes and Cesar award winning actress Elodie Bouchez; “Mary-Marie” for which she was awarded Best Cinematography at the Brooklyn Film Festival in 2010, “Ruta de la Luna” shot on location in Panamá, and the film “Gus” starring Michelle Monahan and Radha Mitchell -currently in post production. Magela has also worked as a Camera Operator and 2nd unit Cinematographer in films like: “Everything is Illuminated” Directed by Liev Schreiber; “My own Love Song” starring Renee Zellweger and Forrest Whitaker and most recently “Cowboys and Aliens” Directed by Jon Favreu starring Harrison Ford and Daniel Craig.
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DALILA MENDEZ - PRODUCTION Designer
Dalila Paola Mendez is a first generation Guatemalan/Salvadorean indigenous queer artist born and raised in Los Angeles. A versatile artist, she works in several media including acrylic paint, silkscreen, etching, digital art, photography, and film. Dalila’s film work includes assisting Production Designer Brigitte Broch and set decorating for the feature film REAL WOMEN HAVE CURVES. She worked as the Production Designer for the short films PURA LENGUA (Sundance 2005), MAUSI, and VIERNES GIRL (HBO, 2006). In 2012, she will be working again with her mentor Brigitte Broch on an upcoming film. She received her B.A. in International Relations from the University of Southern California.
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AUGIE ROBLES - EDITOR
Augie Robles comes off a ten year stint editing C.S.I: Crime Scene Investigation (CBS Productions/ Jerry Brukheimer TV) and makes his move into independent features with the release of MOSQUITA Y MARI, official selection for the Sundance Film Festival 2012. Currently, Augie is directing, writing and editing his short film, THE ROOKIE AND THE RUNNER, which is to be released this year.
In addition to his work in commercial television, Augie has edited several independent short film narratives and documentaries: Aurora Guerrero's short films, PURA LENGUA (Official Sundance selection 2005) and VIERNES GIRL (HBO/ New York International Latino Film Festival 2006). During the Screen Writer's strike of 2007, he edited a short documentary for the University of Notre Dame about Latin American immigration issues examined through art in an exhibition called CARAS VEMOS, CORAZONES NO SABEMOS. Most recently, he cut a short film for the Arts Catalyst project, and chimpanzee demographic, in Rachel Mayeri's PRIMATE CINEMA: APES AS FAMILY.
After college he directed and produced three documentaries that screened at film festivals at home and abroad. He received a letter of recognition form the City of San Francisco in 1995 for !VIVA 16!, an oral history project about the historically gay Latino enclave on 16th Street in San Francisco's Mission District.
Augie Robles is a graduate of both the American Film Institute, where he was a directing fellow class of 1995, and University of California at Berkeley, class of 1990.