Biography

Lisa’s background in documentary production is anchored in her media activism work. After taking the undergraduate course in Social Documentation at UCSC in 1999, she began to produce independent media through Community Television of Santa Cruz County. Her documentary shorts have been focused primarily on the Global Justice Movement and the struggle for alternative forms of economic development in an increasingly globalized world. In 2004, she founded “Santa Cruz Indynewreal: News by and for the People, not the Corporations,” a monthly, collaborative public television show. Her work has won various public television awards and has been screened in film festivals in the United States and Canada and on Free Speech Television.

Her thesis project involves the tourism industry and the commodification of culture and images in the post-colonial city of Salvador, Brazil. Set in an antique store just outside of the main tourist area, the story centers around a box of photos – other people’s photos - that are for sale in the store and are purchased primarily by tourists from Europe and the United States. The documentary explores the meanings behind the intersections of culture, history and economy that occur within these transactions.