Haz clic aquí para ver el perfil de Monika en Español

Monika is an Independent Documentary Producer/Director, whose first film Lost Souls (Animas Perdidas) aired on the award-winning PBS series Independent Lens (March 2010). She holds a BFA in Studio Art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University.

For the past year, she worked in the ArtCorps Ipswich office in an administrative role, always a little envious of the ArtCorps Artists in the field, until new 2011 partnerships in media were an obvious match for her skills. Monika will be working with Cultural Survival to create a video-based training program for indigenous community radio broadcasters.

Monika is drawn to film and video because she enjoys collaborating with people during the shooting and post-production process and having a direct dialogue with the audience once the show is complete. She is inspired by personal stories and her documentary Lost Souls (Animas Perdidas) explores how U.S. immigration laws personally affected her Mexican-American family and their story of survival.

Her community outreach experience has taught her to be a good listener, that she has as much to learn as she has to teach and that urban teens are more afraid of the woods than they are of the projects. Monika is reminded of the importance of reaching diverse audiences who may not have access to the traditional venues to watch films or see art.

"Digital storytelling is a democratic medium that allows people to communicate for themselves."