Guisel Contreras is a documentary director, producer, and visual artist. 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 science, 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 in her documentary work.
Guisel has over a decade of experience producing nonfiction, including a recent three-hour documentary series about science and engineering for primetime television. In addition to producing, Guisel has also filmed on multiple feature-length documentaries, including And She Could be Next (PBS, 2020 and Tribeca, 2020), We Are The Radical Monarchs (SXSW, 2019) and Happening: A Clean Energy Revolution (HBO, 2017), among others. She has also filmed for projects on Netflix and The Wall Street Journal.
Guisel earned her master’s degree in documentary film production from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism, where she was awarded a Documentary Merit Fellowship and studied under the mentorship of acclaimed documentary director Jon Else.
Prior to her work in documentaries, Guisel had a career in television news and had 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.
In her spare time, she enjoys playing the guitar, dancing, and cooking comfort foods. She is a self-proclaimed tamal enthusiast!
