Karla is a director and Emmy-nominated producer. She began her career working for the veteran journalist Bill Moyers and has been a producer, shooter and correspondent for several news programs on PBS. Her award-winning work was described in the Columbia Journalism Review as “compelling, informative and compassionate.”

Her directorial debut, the feature documentary The Place That Makes Us screened at film festivals including DOC NYC and Big Sky Documentary Film Festival, winning awards including Best of the Festival at Arlington Film Festival, Best Feature at Better Cities Festival and Emerging Documentary Filmmaker at Woods Hole Film Festival, and screened at the United Nations World Cities Day Event. The film had its national broadcast premiere on the WORLD Channel/PBS series America ReFramed.

Most recently, she directed and edited the short film Love, Jamie about a transgender artist incarcerated in Texas which premiered at OUTFEST LA and won the Grand Jury Prize for Outstanding Documentary Short, was featured in numerous publications including People, THEM, Hyperallergic and was called “one of the best short documentaries” by Texas Monthly. The film began streaming on PBS American Masters inaugural shorts series in June 2024.

She is now working on her next feature documentary film inspired by her father called The Gas Station Attendant, a co-production with ITVS, Firelight Media, and the Center for Asian American Media for public television.

Karla is of Filipino and South Asian descent. She grew up in Texas, studied classical piano at the High School for Performing and Visual Arts in Houston, and graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in Religion and Computer Science. She is based in New York City, and is a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia and Film Fatales, and is an alumni of the Third World Newsreel Workshop. Her work has been supported by Women Make Movies, the New York State Council of the Arts, Vital Projects Fund, the Firelight Media Residency at Slough Farm on Martha’s Vineyard, and the Yaddo artist residency.

Contact
Email: karla[at]greenefortproductions.com
Instagram: @karlamakingstuff
Greene Fort Productions