Rita Carmona

I'm a Costa Rican-American woman of color that grew up in the Chicago area. My interest in film began with the youtube channel I started with my cousins in middle school and my passion for social justice bloomed out of my mom's involvement in immigrant and union work in Chicago and my dad's experience as a Costa Rican immigrant in the US. I studied anthropology at Kenyon College and was introduced to ethnographic film. After graduating, I worked at multiple nonprofits in Chicago and completed an internship with Kartemquin, a documentary nonprofit in the city. I worked in Englewood and Pilsen doing hyper-local community work and programming and then organized around the city doing democracy work. During this time, I also became an accredited yoga teacher and completed a meditation and chakra focused training. My documentary projects so far have explored pancakes as an American expression of identity and my family's relationships to religion and trauma. I plan to continue creating people-focused projects in Santa Cruz and to expand my camera and research work to Costa Rica. The MFA is meant to continue my intentional work of connection through genuine storytelling in the many mediums that it can exist in, from community work to film and photography. I hope to create projects that prioritize marginalized voices and stories as I explore how art can represent the complicated relationship of joy and pain I see in the world around me. I love my cat, going for long walks with my dog, watching TV, and eating dinner with my partner.