We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Marcella Ochoa a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Marcella , thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
One of my most meaningful projects I have done is a short film I wrote, directed, and produced called MY NAME IS MARIA DE JESUS. It was based on the true story of my family growing up in Texas and the Americanization process they endured for being Mexican American and how they were punished for speaking Spanish and forced to change their names. I always wanted to tell the story of what we went through as I had never seen that particular story represented. It was such a special project for me and I was grateful my friends and family were instrumental in the process and in production. The most special moment was when I premiered the short at a film festival in my hometown of San Antonio where all my family was able to attend and see our story and shared experiences brought to life. I will also forever be grateful to HBO Latino for distributing the short film and understanding the importance of having this story on their platform.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I’m a filmmaker originally from San Antonio and currently reside in Los Angeles. I started off my career in the International Publicity department at Sony studios. I eventually left to learn more about production working at a production company before I branched off to focus on my own production company. Growing up I hardly saw characters from my community that weren’t portrayed in a negative way or stories about my community told authentically. That is something that drives me every day as a filmmaker to help change the narrative for my community. I have always wanted to create film and TV projects that center around Latino characters and stories that aren’t stereotypical. I love all things horror and focus on projects in that genre as well as sci fi and magical realism. These are the films I love to watch and inspire me and I want to see more representation and diversity in these genres. I’m proud of a film I co-wrote called MADRES produced by Blumhouse and distributed on Amazon. It was a social justice thriller and brought to light a horrific subject in my community that has never been explored before in a horror film. I want to continue writing and directing projects like this and my goal is to be able to grow my production company to eventually produce these kinds of projects and give a chance to the next generation of diverse filmmakers who haven’t been given the same opportunities.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
For me it’s so rewarding to hear from people who reach out to me and tell me they have seen themselves represented for the first time in one of my characters. That’s so important for me to create these characters for people to feel seen and represented and it’s so heartwarming when I’m actually able to hear that an audience is connecting with those characters. Also, from my short film on Americanization people reached out to me and said the short sparked conversations within their family of experiences they went through they had never shared and they were able to start discussing it for the first time and healing together. It just shows how necessary it is to have our stories told so people can connect to them and see themselves on screen. Also, I’ve been able to mentor young filmmakers and it’s an amazing experience to mentor and inspire them as I wish I had that when I was coming up in this industry. So, I love giving back any time that I can. That’s very rewarding as well.
What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?
The best way to support filmmakers and stories that you want to see more of is going to the theater when that movie comes out or watching that new TV show. It’s very important to have that kind of box office and viewership support to show the industry there is an audience out there so that more of those kinds of stories can be made. Buying tickets and attending local film festivals is also a great way to support the filmmakers and their projects. You can also support projects through word of mouth and posting on social media as well. Just any way to show studios we want more stories about our community made by our community.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.marcellaochoa.com
- Instagram: @marcellaochoa
Image Credits
Alex Linares
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