When do you work best?

I work best whenever I’m by myself in the quiet and all I can hear are my thoughts. I’m also most functional anytime after 1pm.

How has your practice changed over time?

I started off in film through the lens of advocacy, so a lot of my earlier works are quite didactic, agitprop-like to drive audiences towards political action. Now, my work is more ambiguous and in-between like a poem in cinematic form. I'm less interested in telling audiences what to do than in inviting them to read between the lines to arrive at their own conclusions.

What fuels you?

It’s not so much that something is fueling me. It’s more like I am sitting on a canoe in the middle of a lake with only one paddle. Whenever the wind blows, I follow the direction of the wind – voraciously. But otherwise, I just sit there in my canoe, waiting for the signal of the universe to guide me wherever it is that I should go.

What material do you work with and why?

My own emotions. It’s almost like I shave off thin layers of my emotion from the surface of my spirit and work with that whenever I develop a writing project or a film. Because if I don’t feel anything about a topic or a story, I cannot effectively make anything out of it.

How do you get unstuck?

I read once that writing a line of poetry is like collecting a bolt of lightning – you have to act the very instant it happens, because if you don’t, the inspiration disappears. All that to say, I cannot force myself to get unstuck. I humbly wait for it to pass, because it’s not up to me to get unstuck… That doesn’t mean though that I don’t fill my time with other menial tasks while I wait.

Where do you find inspiration?

Mary Oliver put it best in her poem called “Praying”: “just / pay attention, then patch / a few words together and don’t try / to make them elaborate, this isn’t / a contest but the doorway / into thanks, and a silence in which / another voice may speak.”

Who has influenced you and your work?

All the undocumented mediamakers on whose shoulder I stand and whose work needs to be further memorialized. These include Nancy Meza, Dreamers Adrift (Jesús Íñiguez and Julio Salgado), Undeportables, and the late great Tam Tran.

Who do you hope to influence?

People who share my lived experience – more specifically, undocumented immigrants, queer/nonbinary folks, and working-class Pilipinos anywhere.

Why are you an artist?

I don’t really like labels. Haha! Before I was a filmmaker, I was a linguistics researcher and then a community organizer. When I was a kid, I even thought I was gonna end up as a preacher. Maybe today you perceive me as an artist, but ten years from now, who knows what could happen? I see myself more as a steward of whatever it is life throws at me.

What advice would you give other artists?

It’s not so much advice, but more a reminder. In the words of adrienne maree brown: “you are enough / your work is enough / you are needed / your work is sacred / you are here / and i am grateful.”

What question would you like to ask other artists?

Paint a picture in my head of the most vivid dream you’ve ever had that still haunts you to this day.