My parents immigrated to the United States 8 years before moving to Miami, Florida. I was 6 months old, and we were just in time for Hurricane Andrew. When the hurricane hit, I was blissful in diapers, sequestered in a concrete shelter. Outside, Andrew wreaked havoc on South Florida, releasing buffalo from the zoo and dumping lionfish in local waters. While I danced ballet and learned about boys, the lionfish ate its way to Panama. I became a young woman and it became an invasive parasite. If Hurricane Andrew hadn’t thrown that fish in the bay, I would have never discovered my desire to be a filmmaker. Let me explain...

When I was 19, I went to Panama for 3 weeks for a coral reef research trip. I thought it made sense to go, because at the time I was sure I wanted to be an underwater cam op for BBC’s Blue Planet. This had been a dream of mine from the very moment my highschool sweetheart and I watched it stoned on his mom’s couch. I turned to him and I said, “That’s who I’m gonna be. I’m gonna be the person in the middle of that bait ball. You just watch!” But, while researching and photographing lionfish in Panama it dawned on me: I better learn how to tell stories on land before I take to the seas. That was the moment my dream evolved from being the cam op for Blue Planet to the creator of Blue Velvet, to the writer of The Blues Brothers, to the director – not the lunch – of Jaws. I want more than anything else, to make work that reflects the absurdity of existence. I want to give life to nuanced characters, settings, and situations. And I want to exploit simplicity, too.

Since then I have graduated from USCs Graduate Film and Television Production MFA program. I have worked on features, shorts, music videos, and video installations as a writer, director, producer and assistant director. And have more broadly experienced the creative industry through supporting positions with filmmaker Scott Rudin and artist Seth Price.​​​​