I came to filmmaking over twelve years ago with a broad range of experience including union organizing, a masters degree in history, and non-profit development/fundraising. I am inspired by workers on the front lines of organizing efforts, and Michel-Rolph Trouillot’s teachings about power and the production of history. I believe film has a unique ability to engage audiences to listen more carefully to the voices that are silenced or excluded from our national conversations, this includes the unseen labor that produces the wealth that drives our economy.
My work has necessarily evolved in many different ways. I grew up in predominantly white, rural Western Massachusetts as a cisgender straight woman. My partner of over 20 years is Dominican, and we are raising two children of color, one biological and the other adopted, in a multi-generational home. I have been deeply engaged in better understanding what I call the "whiteness filter". This filter refers to the way white media makers see the world through our cameras. The dominant narrative has been told by my people. As an artist I need to interrogate that narrative in order to help white people learn how to identify and decolonize our own whiteness. It broadens my original vision as an artist, and yet feels like exactly what I need to be doing.
I am fully bilingual in Spanish and English. Click on films to learn more about my projects.
My work has necessarily evolved in many different ways. I grew up in predominantly white, rural Western Massachusetts as a cisgender straight woman. My partner of over 20 years is Dominican, and we are raising two children of color, one biological and the other adopted, in a multi-generational home. I have been deeply engaged in better understanding what I call the "whiteness filter". This filter refers to the way white media makers see the world through our cameras. The dominant narrative has been told by my people. As an artist I need to interrogate that narrative in order to help white people learn how to identify and decolonize our own whiteness. It broadens my original vision as an artist, and yet feels like exactly what I need to be doing.
I am fully bilingual in Spanish and English. Click on films to learn more about my projects.
Photo credit: Stephanie Alvarez Ewens
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Margo Guernsey is a documentary impact filmmaker, and founder of Time Travel Productions LLC. Her first feature Councilwoman (America ReFramed 2019), won multiple awards. Prior to film, Margo worked as a union organizer, non-profit development director, and Spanish/English translator. She holds an MFA in Film (University of Miami), MA in History (Umass/Amherst), and a BA in History (Brown University). Margo’s work has received support from Chicken & Egg Pictures, ITVS, Catapult Film Fund, Perspective Fund, GoodPitch, the Democracy Fund and the Surdna Foundation, among others. She speaks both Spanish and English; and she is a proud Mama of two young children, navigating motherhood, as an adoptive and biological mother, in a bicultural Dominican/American multi-generational household. Margo is a member of the Board of Directors of the Documentary Producers Association. |
