Irene C Herrera

Irene Carolina Herrera (ireneherrera.com) is a multilingual Cuban-Venezuelan filmmaker, visual journalist, and educator with over 20 years experience producing and creating documentary and journalistic content in traditional and new media formats with an emphasis on Latin America and Asia. Upon finishing her B.A. in visual journalism and cinema studies, she headed to Japan as a Monbukagakusho scholar to pursue an M.A. in filmmaking and doctoral studies in photography at Nihon University. Among her documentary works are "Gaijin no Honne: The story of 5 women in Tokyo" (2004); "Kodo wo Awaseba" (2005); "You Can Call Me Nikkie" (2008); "Women in Refuge: Stories from a Border" (2009); "Crossing Hispaniola" (2010); "Spirits to Enlightenment" (2012); "Some Bunny Loves You" (2013), Cracked Foundations (2015), No Elderly Left Behind (2017), Mottainai! Tackling Food Waste in Japan (2018) and collaboration with "Japan in a Day" produced by Ridley Scott. These works have been shown in festivals such as Asian American International Film Festival, UNAFF, HOT DOCS, the Boston Latino International Film Festival and broadcasted on Link TV, INTI, and MNET. Her articles, photographs and videos have been featured in international publications such as The Guardian, The New York Times, Time, The Washington Post, Al Jazeera, AFP, Reuters, The Miami Herald; Venezuelan outlets such as El Universal, El Globo, Platano Verde, and Japanese publications such as Metropolis, Sotokoto, Dune, Jazznin, and The Japan Times. She has also reported live for Deutsche Welle, Globovision, and Union Radio. Irene has been a collaborator of the Global Lives Project, invited to participate in the Flaherty Seminar as a fellow and a resident professional at the University of Miami’s Knight Center for International Media. Currently she serves on the Board of Directors of the US based non-profit Media for Change, the Advisory Council of the Multimedia Laboratory at the National Autonomous University of Mexico and the yoga non-profit Divine Values School. She also teaches media and communications at Temple University Japan Campus in Tokyo. Her work and love for travel have taken her to over 70 countries where she has learned 5 languages.