Today we’d like to introduce you to Sana Sana Productions
Hi Sana Sana, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
We are Saúl Gutierrez, Lillie Silva-Muir, Camila Rozo, and Sara Ruiz, and together we are Sana Sana Productions; a guerilla theatre and film production company centering Queer and Latine stories. For some of our members, our paths collided in high school in the Valley (Rozo and Ruiz); for others, it was in UCLA’s School of Theatre, Film and Television (Gutierrez, Silva-Muir, and Rozo). One global pandemic later, we found ourselves paired up in our respective apartments trying to get our careers off the ground, with Lillie and Saúl in Larchmont and Camila and Sara in North Hollywood.
From previous collaborations in college department shows to projects with other theatre companies, including Unity Theatre Collective, we all had a deep appreciation and respect for one another’s talents. After years of individually tossing around the idea of getting more experience behind the camera, a conversation regarding new reel footage catalyzed our initial project. A very shortened jisty version of these conversations probably went something like this:
“Man, I need new reel footage.”
“Me too!”
“What if we made our own reel scenes????”
“What if we made our own films?!?!”
From there, we fell into making eleven shorts throughout 2 weekends in June of 2023. Talk about trial by fire. In this endeavor, we wore every production hat you can imagine and executed the entire process from pre- to post-production. Not even before the project began, we knew we had a special connection and a deep understanding of one another’s artistry. Solidifying ourselves as a company was an undeniable next step. Of course, the question of what we were going to call ourselves was priority number one. After tossing around ideas such as “Potluck Productions” or “Five Head Productions” (we all have giant foreheads), a chance moment of Camila complaining about their cramps during a production meeting and Sara jumping in with the classic “sana sana colita de rana..” we had our answer. We are named after the classic Spanish saying:
“Sana sana colita de rana, Si no sana hoy, sanará mañana.”
Which translates to: “Heal, heal, little tail of the frog, If you don’t heal today, you’ll heal tomorrow.”
Not only did the title of Sana Sana feel fitting as Latine artists whose cultural identities greatly impact their art, it went beyond that. This is a rhyme used in times of healing. It is often said in a moment of comfort to a loved one. It is also a saying of optimism and hope. We are a company steeped in radical empathy. We consistently make a conscious effort to support, uplift, and show tenderness to one another while creating. We could no longer sit and wait for change to come to the entertainment industry or for others to give us opportunities. We are building a new way for a company to exist and create that challenges an industry that operates on fear and is entrenched in capitalism. Sana Sana is a guerilla production company that relies on the support and kindness of our community. As queer artists, organizing for our communities is integrally tied to our art, and a foundation of our company. Sana Sana is here to create the future we want to see for ourselves and other artists.
After producing our first film project last summer, and readings to fundraise for Palestine this spring, we are so excited to announce our next project, an original short film. We are devising a barely dystopian, campy satire about fascism and Christian nationalism in a near future affecting a group of queer artists preparing for a protest at The second annual Christian Rebrand Academy Awards. As a guerilla production company, we rely on the support of our community, we have started our fundraising campaign to finance this project. We hope you can consider donating to help finance our film, any amount greatly helps us, you can find the link to our Go Fund Me in our
Instagram bio @sanasana.productions.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The road so far has been a wonderful mix of facing ambitious challenges and celebrating extraordinary wins. Sana Sana hit the ground running within its first year of life producing and filming eleven short films and hosting two fundraisers for a cause that is ever present in our hearts, the people of Palestine. When running on such young legs, it is to be expected to collect a few scrapes and bruises along the way.
Though the members of Sana Sana had all experienced being a part of a production team or had even shot reel scenes of their own before, none of us had ever used a proper cinema camera, worked a sound mixer, or edited raw footage before. All things we knew wanted to take on learning during this project as we knew it would benefit us in the future as early career creatives. Pre-production of our eleven short films consisted of long nights fiddling with lights and aperture levels, stretching our $2,000 budget as tight as we could, and weekly rehearsals. All in preparation of our two filming weekends in June. When the time arrived we felt nervous but trusted that we had done our homework. After filming wrapped, with only a few minor obstacles, we decided to take a much needed break before we started with the daunting task of editing our newly shot short films. Editing threw us a huge learning curve, we started editing in September of last year and are just now getting around to finishing the last remaining films. We are desperately looking forward to the next project when we can add “editor” to our budget….
Outside of our projects, within the day to day operations of our company, we often face the infamous challenge that has troubled artists for centuries, working with friends. Sana Sana was born out of the hope and dreams of long time friends from college and high school. It has been a rewarding battle to try to navigate preserving and nourishing our relationships while still holding ourselves accountable to a strong work ethic and our set goals. This is a challenge that may not ever reach a sure and definite solution but we are committed to trial and error until we get close. We believe this is a revolutionary act in an industry that often favors the bottom line over empathy and tenderness.
However these bumps in the road seem small when we have received such love and upliftment from our family, friends and peers. We have been fortunate enough to have built a community that has donated crafty, filming locations, and funds, as well as their physical and creative labor. Without them Sana Sana would not have made it this far down the path.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
We are a guerilla theatre and film production company that often centers socio-political matters in our art.
We started this company after feeling vastly unrepresented in the media. We were told that if we were patient, the industry would continue to slowly change and we’d only have to carry the burden of stereotyped roles for a little longer. We got tired of that story though, and our faith in each other’s ability to prove that narrative wrong fueled us to get together and write, direct, and film one another in far more imaginative parts. We ignited in ourselves a guerilla film school and began teaching ourselves how to make movies over a summer in LA. It was like the longest slumber party of our lives. Our tenacity, our willingness to learn and be wrong, and most importantly our deep commitment to each other and our friendship above all else, we believe, made for some pretty special art making.
In centering socio-political matters, we have become artists and organizers, no longer one before the other. We have established a section of our company solely dedicated to social justice outreach, since our jobs as artists and our responsibility to our communities are tightly intertwined.
Since the escalation in genocide in Gaza and occupation in the West Bank in Palestine, we made the conscious decision to pivot towards organizing and directing a reading of interviews, monologues, and letters from the Cultural Intifada where all the funds went to evacuating a family out of Gaza. We shared some deeply impactful testimonies with our dearest friends and comrades over empanadas and coffee at a queer church in the San Fernando Valley, entrusted to us by our comrade Reverend Pat. We raised $2000 that night. Our pride over our first reading is shadowed by the reality that we were covering less than half of a ticket out of Rafah, since the process of evacuation out of Gaza is costly and inaccessible to many.
Shortly after this evening, we partnered with ASHTAR Theatre, a theatre company in the West Bank where we read The Gaza Monologues to a sold out audience at a beautiful book store in Boyle Heights, Re/Arte: Centro Literario. We also raised $2000 for these powerful thespians, and found some dope and deep camaraderie with Viva Padilla, owner of Re/Arte. Our partnership with ASHTAR moves us greatly, it was an honor to be trusted with their words and an even bigger honor to be in communication with the talented troupe.
We have outgrown senseless hierarchies in our company, and have found this brought us closer to community resource centers like Re/Arte, and MCC United Church of Christ. Our art is strong because we carry a pedagogy of the oppressed into every production we are a part of.
Can you share something surprising about yourself?
What might surprise people about us is that we collaborate on basically every part of our company. We each bring different perspectives and value the ideas we all present along with those of anyone we are working with. We are all friends and want to make each other laugh and support each other’s art and activism. We treat each other and everyone we bring in as equal collaborators and value the different perspectives people have.
We all got our creative legs in the theater where things are often held together by duct tape, poetic language, and persistently positive attitudes. Above all else the common goal of bringing to life whatever text you were lucky enough to be working with tied you together. Costuming, lighting, choreography, text work, direction, stage management- it all felt equally important, and in a good production it all feels connected, in front of and behind the stage. We aim to bring that collaboration and joy to all aspects of what we produce because we know that art can create community for every kind of person, and that means every kind of person can contribute to our community.
It also might surprise people to know that after long collaboration sessions we almost always go out after because Sana Sana absolutely believes in the balance of work and fun.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sanasana.productions/
- Other: https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-sana-sana-make-a-movie
Image Credits
TJ Ramirez
