Kimberly Bautista
Director, Producer, Writer, Cinematographer, Co-Editor
Kimberly Bautista is a Los Angeles-based Colombian and Irish-American filmmaker. She was a Princess Grace Award recipient in 2008 and a Latino Producers Academy Fellow in 2010. She was also the recipient of the prestigious yearlong Latino Artists Mentorship from the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP) in 2010. Kimberly’s debut feature-length documentary film, JUSTICE FOR MY SISTER, received the 2012 HBO-NALIP Documentary Cash Award.
Justice for My Sister has screened in over 170 communities in Guatemala with the help of the Guatemalan Justice for my Sister advocacy team. Kimberly launched a text message-based service in Guatemala to supplement the film and to connect audiences to resources, references, and counseling after community screenings. Her new media and outreach campaign received first prize in the Cuban Hat Transmedia Pitch at Sunny Side of the Doc in La Rochelle, France in June 2012. The film has won several other accolades.
In June 2013, Kimberly spoke at the United Nations Office at Geneva, Switzerland on a panel about Violence Against Women & Girls in Latin America & the Caribbean, where she presented Justice for My Sister and the film’s campaign. Kimberly is the recipient of the inaugural 2013 Young Alumni Achievement Award from her alma mater Pitzer College for Commitment to Promoting International Domestic Violence Prevention through the Use of Media. She was the finalist for the 2013 Estela “Rising Star” Award for Documentary from NALIP for her work with Justice for my Sister.
In 2006, Kimberly founded and directed the Intercultural Web Exchange, a video pen-pal web program between young women in Quito, Ecuador and young Chicana women in Pomona, California. The project lasted for over three years and culminated in a college prep opportunity for the participants. In 2008, Kimberly filmed testimonies of Guatemalans who witnessed human rights violations; these videos were to be used as evidence of genocide to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights with prosecutors from Cal Berkeley and the Myrna Mack Foundation. She has since worked as a freelance field producer both in Latin America and California for clients in the non- profit sector (Hebrew Immigrant Aide Society, The UN Refugee Agency) and the corporate sector (Herbalife). She has also worked on films such as Patricia Cardoso’s Lies in Plain Sight and Morgan Spurlock’s Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope, and television programs on LATV and The Learning Channel. She wrote and directed two public service announcements that aired on Univision to encourage Latinos in the Los Angeles area to pursue a higher education.
Kimberly holds a Master’s in Social Documentation from University of California, Santa Cruz for film production. In Spring 2013, she worked as a lecturer at California State University Monterey Bay in the Visual and Public Art Department. She acted as a jury member for the Connect the Docs transmedia pitch competition at the 2013 Hot Docs Conference & Forum in Toronto, Canada. She spoke on two panels–about investigative journalism & advocacy film, and women and girls in public media–at the INternational PUblic Television Screening Conference (INPUT) in El Salvador in May 2013. She continues traveling with the film thanks to universities, Embassies, and foundations.