Towards a visionary cinema of the borderlands...
Video: Film clips from the work of Borderlands Studios' co-founders Cristina Ibarra and Alex Rivera.
Borderlands Studios, a project of The Sidney Poitier New American Film School, is a space for world-class filmmakers to create new cinematic works that are grounded in the social experience of the “borderlands” and elevated in craft and form.
Borderlands Studios:
- Develops and produces new cinematic work by filmmakers Alex Rivera and Cristina Ibarra, who are ASU professors and co-founders of Borderlands Studios.
- Supports accomplished mid-career filmmakers working in the social, political and cultural borderlands through the Borderlands Visionary Fellowship.
- Presents dynamic public events that deepen, amplify and accelerate a visionary cinema of the borderlands.
Through these initiatives, Borderlands Studios invests in innovative filmmaking that pushes the boundaries of contemporary cinema and illuminates diverse experiences.
Why ‘Borderlands’?
The borderlands are more than a place. The borderlands are both a realm riddled by histories of violence and a place of exchange, conversation and possibility. The mental, cultural and political borderlands are an expansive zone of connection and reflection between north and south, between past and present.
However, in cinema and the media, the borderlands are often reduced to a violent and lawless “no man’s land.” These representations create the backdrop for ignorance and misrepresentation, and they are the product of a media industry that has not evolved to include and reflect the actual diversity of America.
The Latino community - the population most closely associated with the borderlands - has been particularly left behind in the film industry. Despite being nearly 20% of the U.S. population, Latinos are routinely 2% of writers/directors in film and television.
We urgently need better narratives of the borderlands.
The Sidney Poitier New American Film School
Borderlands Studios is housed in ASU’s Sidney Poitier New American Film School. The studio is a field-leading research and production center, and a unique and immersive learning environment for the next generation of filmmakers.
Borderlands Studios’ work is grounded in ASU’s mission to advance research and discovery of public value, and guided by the belief that films rooted in authentic lived experiences, especially from points of view that have been marginalized historically, contribute to the economic, social and cultural health of the public at large.
Borderlands Studios provides ASU students the extraordinary opportunity to be part of a vibrant production environment, working alongside established professionals and gaining hands-on experience on film crews, attending work-in-progress screenings, screenplay readings, and other exclusive events. By working in the studio, students are exposed to the creative process and the challenges and rewards of bringing visionary stories to life.
Borderlands Studios is pioneering a new model of film education that propels new, world-class cinematic research and production, while also preparing students to become future leaders in film.
Borderlands Visionary Fellowship
The Borderlands Visionary Fellowship is a new program designed to nurture exceptional mid-career filmmakers who are telling stories grounded in borderlands experience and elevated in craft and form.
About the Fellowship
The Borderlands Visionary Fellowship provides direct financial support to selected fellows to develop feature films that capture authentic and nuanced reflections of the “borderlands.” Fellows receive an unrestricted grant of $50,000 to support the development of original films over a one-year period. Fellows will also have access to The Sidney Poitier New American Film School resources, including state-of-the-art studios, virtual production stages, sound mixing and color correction facilities and digital camera equipment.
Eligibility
This is a nomination-only fellowship. The inaugural class of fellows will be selected by the Borderlands Studios staff in consultation with a team of industry professionals and filmmakers based on the following criteria:
- A commitment to telling stories inspired by the mental, cultural and political ‘borderlands.'
- Have created celebrated works that have screened at a major domestic or international film festival, received theatrical distribution, a national broadcast, or streamed on a major streaming platform.
- Actively developing, or are in pre-production or early production, on a feature film project. Projects can be either documentary or scripted.
Future classes of fellows will be selected by an advisory committee of industry professionals, ASU faculty and previous Borderlands Studios Fellows
Current fellows
Cecilia Aldarondo is a director and producer from the Puerto Rican diaspora who works at the intersection of poetics and politics. Her feature documentaries “Memories of a Penitent Heart” (2016) and “Landfall” (2020) premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and were co-produced by the award-winning PBS series POV. Her third feature, “You Were My First Boyfriend,” had its world premiere at the 2023 South by Southwest Film Festival and is now streaming on HBO. Among Aldarondo's fellowships and honors are the Guggenheim, a three-time MacDowell Colony Fellowship, the 2022 IDA Emerging Filmmaker Award, 2021 New America Fellowship and Women at Sundance 2017. In 2019 she was named to DOC NYC's 40 Under 40 list and is one of 2015’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. She teaches at Williams College.
Peter Bratt is a Rockefeller Fellow, a Peabody Award winner, an Emmy-nominated film producer, writer and director, a member of the Director’s Guild of America (DGA) and the recipient of the 2023 University of California Santa Cruz’s Social Science Alumni of the Year award.
Bratt was born and raised in San Francisco by a strong, indigenous, single mother from Peru. His family was part of the American Indian Occupation of Alcatraz, the Wounded Knee standoff and the Farm Workers Movement. As a consultant, organizer and community member, he has worked with the International Indian Treaty Council, Amazon Watch, Friendship House Association of American Indians, BAYCAT, H.O.M.I.E.S., Instituto Familiar De La Raza, CANA, the SF American Indian Cultural District and Native American Health Center.
In 1996, Bratt released his first feature film, “Follow Me Home,” which acclaimed novelist Alice Walker referred to as “a work of genius” and over time became a cult classic. “Follow Me Home” premiered at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival and won the Best Feature Film Audience Award that same year at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
In 2007, he and his brother Benjamin Bratt (actor) and their partner Alpita Patel co-founded 5 Stick Films, a production company intent on making films that create social impact.
Two years later, in 2009, they produced “La Mission,” a feature Bratt also wrote and directed. “La Mission” premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, received the prestigious Norman Lear Writer’s Award, won the NAACP and GLAAD award nominations and won two Imagen awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor. It was one of 10 American independent films selected by Sundance and the President’s Committee on Arts and Humanities to launch Sundance Film Forward, a program that uses film and conversation to excite and introduce a new generation to the power of story.
He also wrote, produced and directed “Dolores,” a feature documentary about civil rights icon Dolores Huerta that was executive produced by legendary musician Carlos Santana. “Dolores” debuted at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and has won numerous awards, including a 2018 Peabody Award and a Critic’s Circle Award.
In 2021, he was also the director and executive producer of ABC’s “Corazon de America,” which was the most widely watched episode of the network's “Soul of a Nation” series.
In addition to his film and television work, Bratt works and organizes in his community. As part of a Native-Latino coalition that is building the first urban Indigenous village in the United States, he is the project lead for Friendship House’s The Village SF, a social service, cultural and spiritual center run by and in service to over 9,000 American Indians living in San Francisco – providing access to health care and behavioral health services, cultural resources, housing and a place to thrive.
Aurora Guerrero is a Chicana filmmaker and activist born to immigrant parents and raised in Northern California. She is a graduate of UC Berkeley and California Institute of Arts. Her debut feature, “Mosquita y Mari,” premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and garnered multiple awards, including Indie Spirit and GLAAD nominations. The New York Times called the film “an unassuming jewel,” praising Guerrero’s attention to the humanity of her characters.
She is attached to direct the pilot of “The Owl” at Apple+ with Skydance, Religion of Sports and Nuyorican producing and Michael Perri and Vaughn Willmott writing.
She has spent the last decade racking up an increasingly prestigious list of television credits as a sought after episodic director. She is currently directing a block of episodes for Apple+’s new series “Sanctuary.”
The films of Mexican-American filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes challenge the traditions of cinema to examine the contradictory nature of our shared world while revealing the potential for transformative change.
Reyes has received the support of the Mexican Film Institute, Sundance and Tribeca Institutes and is a recipient of the Guggenheim and Creative Capital Awards, as well as the Rainin Artist Fellowship, the SF Indie Vanguard Award and the Eureka Fellowship from the Fleishhacker Foundation. Reyes has supported the health of the film community as a board-member of the Video Consortium and the Roxie Theater, and as co-director of the BAVC Mediamaker Fellowship. He has presented his work and taught masterclasses in many settings, including Stanford, Harvard, Yale, UC Santa Cruz, UCLA, Princeton, Boston University, MassArts, The New School, University of San Diego and the DOCS MX Film Festival.
In 2020, his film “499” won Best Cinematography at Tribeca and the Special Jury Award at Hot Docs. “Sansón and Me” won the Best Film Award at Sheffield DocFest and opened the 2023 season of the prestigious documentary series Independent Lens. That same year, he was named a Visiting Artist at Stanford University through the Mellon Foundation. In 2024, he won the Doclands Pitch with an upcoming collective film, and he was honored to be selected for the DocX Lab “Otherwise Histories, Otherwise Futures,” organized by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke.
The team
Founders
Associate Professor, The Sidney Poitier New American Film School
Cristina Ibarra is a multiple Sundance award-winning filmmaker and a genre-bending, cinematic border-crosser. Her 20-year film practice crosses the borders of cinematic language and of the Texas-Mexico social and cultural landscape...
Associate Professor, The Sidney Poitier New American Film School
Alex Rivera is an award-winning filmmaker with more than 25 years of experience directing and producing documentaries, scripted feature films and new media, which explores themes of globalization, migration and technology....
Program Director
Head of Development and Production
Associate
News and media
Media contact
ASU News
Buzz about Borderlands Studios
Cinema Tropical
Cal State Fullerton News