The Invisible Valley (feature documentary in production) Director
The Invisible Valley immerses us in California’s Central Valley, a landscape that nourishes the country while harming its laborers and destroying the natural environment. Told through intimate observational scenes that transform into surreal poetic chapters the film asks how do our bodies reflect climate change and pollution?
2022 ITVS Humanities Documentary Development Fellowship, SFFILMHouse Residency (2023-2024), Redford Center Fellowship (2024), Berkeley Film Foundation Saul Zaentz Award (2024)
Team:
Director/Producer - Elivia Shaw
Elivia is an award-winning filmmaker driven by filmmaking that uses intimacy and personal narrative to question our larger social systems. Her work has been featured on the Atlantic and PBS and her short film, The Clinic won awards at seven film festivals including AFI Fest. She previously worked on award-winning documentaries for Al Jazeera, HBO and PBS. Elivia was a Co-Producer on Natalia Almada’s USERS (2021 Directing Award Sundance) and Co-Producer and Co-Editor on Leslie Tai’s How to Have an American Baby (True False 2023, PBS’ POV). Her work has been supported by the Redford Center, Berkeley Film Foundation, ITVS and SFFILM. She is a graduate of Stanford University’s Documentary MFA program where she has taught production courses since 2018.
Producer - Brenda Ávila-Hanna
Brenda is a filmmaker and educator born and raised in Mexico City and currently based in California's Central Coast. Her films mostly focus on transnational stories, spaces and identities. Her work has been showcased at HotDocs, Lakino Berlin, Frameline, HBO and Fusion Network among others. Brenda is a recent fellow for Sundance’s Documentary Producing Lab, BAVC’s National MediaMaker, the National Minority Consortia Lab through LPB, NALIP and DocsMX. Brenda was in the inaugural cohort of DOC NYC’s “Documentary Industry New Leaders” and a 2021 Rockwood/Just Films Fellow. She produced the ITVS supported documentary Emergent City (2024 Tribeca Film Festival) and is producing "How to Clean a House in 10 Easy Steps" (Dir. Carolina Gonzalez). Brenda received an M.A. in Social Documentation from UCSC.
Associate Producer - George Alfaro
George Alfaro is a Mexican American photojournalist and documentarian reporting on environmental injustices, socioeconomic inequality, and international affairs. Alfaro is focused on producing visual stories that highlight the human experience and offer a glimpse into the intimate moments that unfold in underrepresented communities. His work is found in Richmond Confidential, the National Institution of Climate Education, Querencia, and the Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive. He completed his Masters of Journalism at U.C. Berkeley in 2024.
