Laura Varela (Producer) channels her upbringing on the US/Mexico border in El Paso, Texas, into her work, transcending cultural, linguistic, and physical borders through film and contemporary art installations. Based in San Antonio, Texas, she is a producer for the VoxFem Network, a platform for innovative, international women artists and changemakers. Her work as a Producer/Director/Writer for documentary films further underscores her commitment to social justice movements and her mission to use art and storytelling to uplift the Latinx/Chicanx community. 

Varela’s documentary, As Long As I Remember: American Veteranos, was broadcast nationally on PBS. Her documentary short, with Anne Lewis, Un Trip: Raúlrsalinas and The Poetry Of Liberation, won numerous awards and was broadcast on PBS stations across Texas as part of the “Frame of Mind” series. She is the Associate Producer on Anne Lewis’s film A Strike And An Uprising (In Texas!). Varela’s projects have received funding from Latino Public Broadcasting, Black Public Media, California Humanities Documentary Fund, Humanities Texas, ITVS Diversity Development Fund, The National Association of Latino Arts and Culture National Fund for the Arts, the  Bexar County Public Arts Fund, and the City of San Antonio Arts and Culture. She is a 2025 Wyncote Filmmaker Fellow.   

Varela lectures and screens her work nationally and internationally at cultural centers and Universities. She taught classes on documentary film in the Department of Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality Studies at the University of Texas San Antonio. Varela is an alumnus of the PBS Producers Academy, the NALAC Leadership Institute, the NALIP Producers Academy, the NALIP Latino Media Market, and the Creative Capital Professional Development Workshop. She is a graduate of the University of Texas Department of Radio-TV and Film. Artist Residencies include Swarthmore College, Art for Change, NYC, and the Hochschule Niederrhein, Faust Academy, and the University of Bielefeld in Germany.  She is currently developing a feature film, Queen Of The Accordion, based on the life of Conjunto musician Eva Ybarra, and the documentary Rebecca Flores: Under The South Texas Sun with Anne Lewis.   

Andrew Gonzales (Producer/Director) is a versatile documentary filmmaker, director, editor, and cinematographer. His recent documentary shorts, including Standing Rock: A New Nation, Here: The Garrett Scott Story, and Right In Front Of Us, tackle pressing issues such as environmental activism, disability rights, and the US-Mexico border crisis. Beyond his documentary work, Gonzales produces content for agencies focused on corporate responsibility, green technology, and social change. In 2018, he took home several honors from film festivals, including Brooklyn’s Latino Short Film Festival, the Hollywood International Moving Pictures Film Festival, the Festigious International Film Festival, the Top Shorts Online Film Festival, and the IndieFest Film Awards. In 2015, he and filmmaker Laura Varela took top prize in the 80/20 Foundation’s City on The Rise Film Competition at The San Antonio Film Festival.