Brenda Contreras (Los Angeles, 1984) is a 2-spirit experimental filmmaker and land defender living in a state of Nepantla or "In Between" - navigating through abelism and the constructs of imagined borders within Turtle Island.  

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Contreras' ideas center around geography, memory, transgenerational trauma & the body, language and lack thereof; weaving 16mm, super 8, and archival footage. 

 

Southern California, San Francisco, Mexico City, Nayarit, and New York City have all been home and shape the backdrop of both the imagined and observed worlds within her films.

 

Their work has screened at various micro-cinemas, theaters, colleges and alternative spaces including REDCAT, the San Francisco MUNI Rail Lines, Microscope Gallery, Laboratorio Experimental de Cine, Cineteca Nuevo León, Northwest Film Forum, LaborBerlin, Millennium Film Workshop, Dartmouth College, and with the Collectif Jeune Cinéma.  

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Brenda has been supporting the exhibition of experimental cinema internationally for over 16 years, working with the Cut + Run touring film festival, Artists' Television Access, Echo Park Film Center, Ambulante, and LA Filmforum's ISM ISM ISM: Experimental Film in Latin America series. She currently lives in California and fights to bring agency back to the Land, flora and fauna with her non-profit Coyotl wan Macehualli.

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