Maria “Maruka” Opett, Director-Producer
Originally from Sinaloa, Mexico, Maria “Maruka” Opett spent much of her youth helping her grandfather gather crops in the field. Although her grandfather kept his land, she saw many others lose their farms to agricultural corporations, a vivid memory she would return to years later.
As a young adult, Maruka developed a knack for language and a taste for traveling and fashion. After attending journalism school at the Universidad Autonoma in Guadalajara and studying French at the Sorbonne, she traveled to the Netherlands to work as a lighting designer and later moved to Chicago to work with fashionista June Blaker. In 1999, Maruka relocated to San Francisco and then to Salinas – an agricultural city in the heart of California’s vast Central Valley – where she met migrant farm-workers originally from her home of Sinaloa and other regions of Mexico. She then went to work as a radio producer for Radio Bilingue and KPFA-Berkeley, the people of the Central Valley still in her mind.
Maruka started MoVoz as a way to return to her roots, and with the mission of telling the stories of those many displaced farm-workers who make their lives in the Central Valley. As an artist who has worked in many different fields, Maruka imagined MoVoz as a multimedia oral history project, making visible the narratives of migrant workers who travel thousands of miles in pursuit of livelihoods and the American Dream.
Nicole Opper was raised in San Diego, CA and came out at the age of 17. It didn’t take her long to realize how unique the support of her parents was. It became her greatest hope that one day all LGBTQ youth could be embraced by their families and communities, and so she is committed to doing her part to achieve this through her work as a filmmaker and an educator. Nicole’s work to date includes the Emmy‐nominated 2010 feature documentary “Off and Running” which won ten international awards and aired on the national PBS series, P.O.V. The film tells the story of a teenage African American adoptee, being raised by two Jewish lesbians, who goes on a search for her roots. According to Out Magazine, the film “brilliantly redefines the concept of the American family.” Nicole has continued to explore alternative and queer family structures, and to train her camera on young people making sense of themselves in a world where racial and sexual identities are increasingly fluid. Her hope is to expand to narrative storytelling while in graduate school, further explore the notion of family and identity, as well as to present nuanced and challenging portraits of our community to a wide audience.
Sara Lafleur-Vetter grew up in small towns outside of Philadelphia, PA rifling through old National Geographic Magazines and dreaming of far-away places. Since then she has graduated from Reed College with a degree in Russian and Anthropology and traveled to Europe, Central Asia, Russia, and Africa in search of poignant photographs and stories. From 2010-2012 she settled down in the Bay Area and produced radio for KPFA. Most recently she fell in love with documentary film while watching her friend’s movie trailer about the Democratic Republic of the Congo and will be studying documentary film at Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism in the Fall of 2013. For more information visit: www.saralafleur.com and www.soundcloud.com/saralafleur-vetter
Originally from Houston but growing up in Colorado and Pennsylvania, Sara Aboulafia graduated from Smith College in 2009 with a degree in American Studies. During her time at Smith, she traveled to New Orleans and spent a month doing advocacy journalism for volunteer organization Common Ground, a formative experience. She has since interned for popular Denver magazine 5280 and taught creative writing to kids. A performing singer-songwriter, Sara decided to settle in the Bay Area for its passionate creative and political community as well as its legendary woods, water, and sunlight. As a writer, Sara feels blessed to have stumbled upon Movoz; she is thrilled to be part of a project that helps illuminate lives and struggles that are unfortunately unfamiliar and unknown to most Americans.
AnnMarie is passionate about listening and believes in the power of storytelling to increase understanding among people and across cultures. Despite being a lifelong student, she graduated from the Hutchins School at Sonoma State University in 1998 with Honors and Distinction. A lover of radio she is soon to graduate from KPFA’s First Voice Apprenticeship Program, and has been producing radio pieces since early 2012. To hear her work: www.soundcloud.com/stirsthepot
Cece Reinhardt My quest to live outside the lines and explore what it means to be sustainable, passionate and bold led me and my partner on a three year down-sizing journey to find our path to small footprint living. By selling the house and renting a smaller home closer to work, we were able to pay off our debt and take a fresh look at our dreams and passions. We realized that owning a large property, multiple cars and tons of stuff didn’t bring us any closer to happiness, enlightenment or community. We purchased a used Airstream and took on an eco remodel, turned a used diesel truck into a veggie oil machine and hit the road in complete “off the grid” style (see more at www.greenrvlife.com). Exploration and educational outreach were our primary objectives…. we partnered with businesses, schools and non-profits to promote simple, eco living and learning. The 18 months living full-time on the road were life changing. I am now back in bay area and ready to partner with MoVoz as their grant writer. I have a Bachelor’s in Psychology and a Master’s in Sociology and have worked in Public Health, non-profit and grant writing roles. I am a social activist at heart and always ready to dig my hands into a worthy project.
MOVOZ 