Author Archives: Anna Padilla

Alejandro Montoya Marin is no stranger to filmmaking and has been doing it for 10 years in Albuquerque. For his feature-length film Millennium Bugs, which centers on a group of friends in the days leading up to the year 2000, Montoya Marin wanted to capture the authenticity of the Duke City.

“This is definitely a historic moment. This impacts approximately 60,000 motion picture and television workers, IATSE workers that work under these agreements. This is going to be listed as one of the most impactful strikes in American history if it gets to that point.”

“There’s not a lot of Filipinos in New Mexico, so to be around a lot of girls who have a similar culture as I do, it just feels like I’m back home because we all talk the same language, we all eat the same food, we all basically think the same way.”

Ramona Emerson has been telling stories her whole life. As a Navajo woman, she says telling stories is in her blood and an important part of her heritage. She’s been making films for over 20 years, telling the stories of her community, and now helping train the next generation of Indigenous storytellers.

“There is so much unknown that it made it hard for them to progress with their senior year as they normally would. We’ve been chasing down answers, trying to find opportunities, trying to open doors and it seemed like every day, something was changing. A lot of our students shut down.”

César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, an activist from northern New Mexico, are known for leading a movement to bring better working conditions and civil rights to farm and migrant workers, a movement still on-going today in New Mexico’s own farm-working communities.

“My job is to make sure the performers feel safe and are able to focus on what they need to do in the scene. I work with how they work, whether that’s something more improvisational or something more heavily choreographed.”

“Now I have friends, it’s a social thing. You get out among similar types of people and then you start sharing what works and what doesn’t work. It just opens so many doors.”

“It really is about equity. If you take a look at APS and the population that we serve, these kiddos come from many different backgrounds and we are probably one of the most diverse districts in the nation,” Villalobos said. “If kids are speaking another language, we really need to validate their language and their culture.”

Didomi is an Albuquerque company that partners with organizations that aim to combat the global water crisis.
For co-founder Anaa Jibicho, the company’s mission is deeply personal. Jibicho is a refugee from Ethiopia and has already lost two siblings to sickness related to drinking unsafe water. Jibicho became ill himself, but was able to recover when he came to the United States. Now he wants to make sure something like that doesn’t happen to anyone else.