Phoenix, AZ, USA
$250 - $500 / Day
Request QuoteValeria Fernández is a multimedia journalist with more than a decade of experience as bilingual documentary producer and journalist covering Arizona’s immigrant community and the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. Her award-winning, independent reporting has taken her to places such as Guatemala, Mexico, Brazil and Uruguay, and has focused on topics ranging from migrant kidnappings to racial profiling and discrimination against migrant women in jail. Fernández also contributes to CNN Spanish and Al Jazeera English, and has been published by newsrooms such as The Washington Post and The Associated Press Spanish. In 2012, she completed her first documentary, “Two Americans,” which contrasts enforcement actions by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and a 9-year-old girl – a U.S. citizen – trying to stop deportation of her parents. In 2014, she co-directed, filmed and edited six short films for an international web documentary, “Connected Walls,” on life at the U.S.-Mexico border.
Produced for Grizzly Films
John Ladd is a fifth generation rancher working on a family ranch along the U.S-Mexico border. He spends 50 percent of his time repairing his fence due to the number of undocumented immigrants that use his property to enter the country illegally. Ladd, however, is more disturbed by the threat the federal government’s border wall has posed to the regional wildlife.
Produced for Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting (AZCIR)
Since a toxic mine spill in 2014 impacted nearly 25,000, Mexican authorities say the Sonora River is clean. The government has identified nearly 400 people with illnesses tied directly to heavy metal contamination. But as new cases continue to emerge, researchers and environmental experts warn that the problem could be much greater than the government admits.
I worked as a co-director and producer for the feature film Two Americans. I was also an additional shooter for the project. This is an excerpt from the film.
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