An intimate portrait of Sogorea Te Land Trust, Indigenous people who’ve survived the California Mission system and the hyphy movement. The internal transformation of members reflected on the streets of Ohlone Oakland. Town Biz Indigenous folk. Currently in production.
Cinematography by Leo Maco. Produced by Loren Kasey Waters. Directed by Jean Melesaine. (2025)
Currently in post. A short doc follows the journey of Kazani, a Samoan-American community organizer born and raised in San Francisco .
Cinematography by Gabriel Guarano. Directed and Produced by Jean Melesaine (2024)
The Chicago Torture Justice Center was born out of reparations for survivors of police torture. Survivors and their families fought for decades for access to the trauma-informed resources and politicized healing support that the Center now offers. Today, with hundreds of survivors still incarcerated and the persistence of racialized police violence, that fight continues. Directed and
Produced for The Democracy Frontlines Fund of Libra Foundation. Cinematography by Jes Gallegos. Directed and Produced by Jean Melesaine (2023)
Bay Area artists finding a way through grief and solitude in the pandemic. Directed by Jean Melesaine (2020)
Undocumented poet and writer Yosimar Reyes piece on the effects of COVID 19 on his community. Directed by Jean Melesaine. (2020)
Filmed for Chubby, Jean’s cousin in front of Oakdale Ave. in San Francisco. Shot in 2013.
Steeda Mcgruder was in prison pregnant with her daughter Malaysia, where she also gave birth. She then went in and out of jail, during her recent release she began running a support group through the county for system impacted women as well. (2014)
Langilangi continues an ancestral tradition of creating gnatu in Deep East Oakland, a Tongan bark cloth used in ceremony. Produced for the Oakland Museum’s Pacific Worlds exhibition. (2015)