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Cristina Ibarra and Jennifer Fox on Non-fiction Filmmaking

As part of the PBS series POV's 25th season, Filmmaker Magazine ran a four-part conversation series featuring non-fiction filmmakers Cristina Ibarra and Jennifer Fox last week. Cristina is a participant in Firelight Media's Producers' Lab for her upcoming film Las Marthas. See below for links to the series as well as excerpts from the conversations.

In the first piece, "Jennifer Fox and Cristina Ibarra on Choosing Documentary Filmmaking," the filmmakers discussed their childhoods and what drew them to documentary film. For Cristina, who grew up in a Mexican immigrant family in the bordertown of El Paso, film combined her love of Chicano history and building connections. She stated: "I found that joining those two subjects—filmmaking and the Chicano history I was learning—was the easiest way to talk to my family." For Jennifer, who grew up in a Jewish family and had an early interest in social justice, film became a way to combine passions. She stated: "I was really trying to combine this love of art and story with changing the world. And film sort of just did it all in one way."

In the next segment "Jennifer Fox and Cristina Ibarra on Doc Filmmaking as a Vocation," Jennifer calls filmmaking "infinite art" and "an endless learning process." She also discussed how she raised over $150,000 through crowdfunding after one of her producers defaulted on her film My Reincarnation. In the segment, "Jennifer Fox and Cristina Ibarra on Doc Filmmaking as an Act of Faith," Cristina stated: "It is about faith and using all the lessons learned from the failures and the mistakes and past works and successes, and just trying to grow and learn despite the people that aren’t excited about it. That’s what keeps the passion alive." In the final segment, on women in film, both filmmakers gave "their individual takes on the huge disparity between the number of men and women working in film."

Definitely check out this rich conversation and a special shout out to Cristina for her part in the series!

Photo: Cristina Ibarra