Winner
AWI Short Film Competition

Dear Nay

A love letter to a mother who died of cancer, from her son who followed her footsteps as a teacher. This is a poetic documentary on grief.

Content Heads-Up: loss of a parent to cancer, images of a funeral, images of end of life care

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Director: Nich L. Perez

Nich “Nick” Perez is a Filipino - American filmmaker, educator, producer, creative director and collaborator, researcher, artist, and professional storyteller based in Austin, TX, and Los Angeles, CA. He has a knack for telling stories that matter told through the lens of empathy and community. So he enjoys creating pixels and film grain through relationships and treating them as sacred, and produces media that transcend through the lens as a whole, rendering beauty, inspiration, and authenticity in an evolving media landscape. And before doing his academic fellowship in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, he was an Assistant Professor in Communications and Visual Arts at Holy Cross College at Notre Dame, IN, where he also served as the director of the digital arts studio. With 15 years of experience in multimedia storytelling, his work intersects with social justice, creativity, identity, volunteerism, philosophy, mental wellness, and service- learning through media arts and practice. Nich continues to collaborate with multiple non-profit organizations, and his extensive mission-driven media work supports their causes in print to emerging media. Many of these projects were in numerous international film festivals and exhibitions, including his poetic documentary, LETTERS: transformations that was the March 2021 winner of the Art With Impact Short Film Competition. He hopes to continue to share this passion of transforming hearts and minds through powerful stories and in meaningful projects, one pixel at a time.