Proud member of:
Collective of Documentary Women Cinematographers
Guisel Contreras is a Mexican American documentary director, producer and cinematographer. She specializes in observational documentaries and has a love for filming life as it unfolds. Guisel is dedicated to telling stories about women, education, art, health and human rights and believes in the power of intimate, character-driven storytelling to mobilize social change. She is proud to capture the complexities of people’s lives from behind the camera.
Guisel has filmed on multiple feature-length documentaries including We Are The Radical Monarchs (SXSW, 2019), And She Could be Next (PBS, 2020 and Tribeca, 2020) and Happening: A Clean Energy Revolution (HBO, 2017), among others. She has also filmed for projects on Netflix and The Wall Street Journal.
In addition to her camerawork, she served as the associate producer and assistant editor on the documentary feature We Are the Radical Monarchs on PBS, about a group of young girls of color on the frontlines of social justice in Oakland, California. She was also associate producer on the documentary Radical Brownies, currently streaming on The Guardian.
A first-generation college student, Guisel earned her master’s degree in journalism from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where she was awarded a Documentary Merit Fellowship and worked under the mentorship of director and cinematographer Jon Else.
Prior to her work in documentaries, Guisel had a career in television news and has worked for NBC and CBS, both locally and nationally, where she covered a wide range of stories including presidential elections, California wildfires, higher education and criminal justice reform.
Guisel is based in Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area. In her spare time she enjoys playing the guitar, dancing and cooking comfort foods. She is a self-proclaimed tamale enthusiast!
