Samantha Ariel Berlanga
Director | Cinematographer | Writer
About
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sammyyariel@gmail.com
“Make up a story. For our sake and yours forget your name in the street; tell us what the world has been to you in the dark places and in the light. Don’t tell us what to believe, what to fear. Show us belief’s wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear’s caul.” - Toni Morrison
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From a young age I was fascinated by the stories around me and how they shaped the people around me. I came to witness how many of these stories were nuanced and filled with paradoxes. And how often a lot of us have been asked to give up or conform our stories in order to survive.
In a world consumed by apathy, shame, and fear for the sake of profit, storytelling remains a radical act of connection and tool in supplying a new world beyond survival. Not the new world of the colonizer west, where innovation and progress come at the expense of marginalized communities, but the new world de la gente. Where we use every shred of our dignity, fortitude, and ancestors call from the mountains to tell our stories with pride. Because we know that even when they are whispered they are revolutionary.
As a mixed media artist, filmmaker and writer, these truths have always been a pillar in how I choose to create and share my work. I seek to expose the connections between our lived experiences and the institutions that dominate. Emphasizing that agency is a vital part of liberating all our stories.
You’ll find that my repertoire of work combines a mixture of mediums from analog to digital animation. Telling stories from the comedic to the poetic all the while making the most of the resources accessible to me. I hope it will bring us a semblance of more love, more peace, more truth and pleasure in this forever chaotic world.
Samantha (she/they) is a proud queer filmmaker and Nuyorican, who was raised as a part of a diverse diaspora of latinx immigrants from the Caribbean and South America. She is currently residing in the San Francisco Bay Area as a SFFilm House Resident. Working on her first feature documentary project, Pleasure Seekers’