Many thanks to Catherine Wagley for her thorough and perceptive coverage of the L.A. art scene. Up next is independent filmmaker Monika Navarro. Monika is currently in post-production on her debut documentary Animas Perdidas (Lost Souls), to be aired on PBS in 2009. The film is a portrait of Monika’s Mexican-American family following the deportation of her uncles, who were green card holders and served in the U.S. military. The film was produced in association with ITVS and WGBH in Boston. Last year Monika produced Animas Perdidas as a Filmmaker-in-Residence at WGBH. She was selected to screen the film in the Spotlight on Documentaries Works-in-Progress at the 2006 IFP Market, where she was nominated for an Emerging Latino Filmmaker Award. Monika was also a visiting artist at the Barefoot Workshops in Clarksdale, Mississippi.
Monika received her BFA in Studio Art from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and Tufts University. In 2001 she was awarded a scholarship from the Mexico Solidarity Network to participate in a delegation with the Chiapas Media Project. In 2005, Monika was the festival coordinator for the award-winning Cambridge, MA-based “Do It Your Damn Self!!” National Youth Video and Film Festival, a youth-curated film festival.
