Moni Vargas
Moni Vargas is an AfroIndigenous, 3x Emmy-nominated, award-winning filmmaker, artist and facilitator with 20 years of experience and a commitment to gender justice, radical inclusivity, and care. She has directed & produced feature film documentaries, music videos, editorials, scripted shorts, commercial and educational content, including Con Safos, a one-hour documentary for PBS/KCET earning two Southern California Journalism Awards, two National Journalism Awards, and an Emmy Award nomination in 2022.
Between 2019 and 2021, Moni served as the Creative and Program Director at Breakthrough, a nonprofit culture change organization that uses media to promote human rights through a feminist lens. Moni directed and produced, Our Stories in Vivid Color, a nine-part short documentary series and interactive story archive by and for girls, women and gender expansive youth of color artists and activists.
Audrey’s Poem, a short narrative film Moni wrote, produced and directed, is included in the film anthology, Big Little Girls and won Second Place at the PDX Recovery Film Festival. She has also directed an 11-part university course with Queen Latifah and the pilot episodes of Red Table Talk, nominated for an Emmy Award in 2019.
Moni is the co-founder of Friends We Love / Nuyorktricity, a Latine media production company she runs with her partner, Michael Vargas, based in Los Angeles, California. For the past 15 years, their clients have included Sony Pictures, PBS, Paramount Network, Will Smith’s Westbrook & Overbrook Entertainment, Vice, and Firelight Media, among others. Their film work has screened at international film festivals, the United Nations, and at New York’s prestigious Brooklyn Museum and The Bronx Museum.
Friends We Love is currently co-producing and directing Casa 0101: 25 Years of Community Theater, documenting how this Boyle Heights theater has positively impacted lives through Latino storytelling and arts education. With founder Josefina López’s hit play, Real Women Have Curves making history by being adapted into Broadway's first Mexican-American musical, the theater celebrates its legacy while facing the challenges of establishing lasting roots in Boyle Heights.
Moni is skilled at managing projects from concept development through delivery with highly inclusive teams. She has developed a Care-Centered Approach to Filmmaking and Storytelling, facilitating seminars, workshops and trainings for organizations like The Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Represent Justice, Skoll World Forum and Double Exposure.
In 2022, she co-directed another one-hour documentary for the award-winning PBS/KCET Artbound series, earning an Emmy nomination, and a six-part documentary series featuring inspiring stories of athletes with dual citizenship for P&G. She had developed two unscripted projects: a half-hour pilot she executive produced and directed, Unapologetically Fly, featuring a group of women of color in midlife who travel around the world and Healing Through the Home, a transformative and inspiring lifestyle series.
Moni enjoys creative time with her family, especially cooking, living room sound baths and dance parties to her monthly Friends We Love radio show on WorldwideFM.
Co-Director / Producer: Moni Vargas
A pioneer of Chicano rock 'n' roll, Rubén Funkahuatl Guevara recounts his life in music, performance art, and activism — from his time as the lead singer of the doo-wop band The Apollo Brothers, his collaborations with Frank Zappa and Cheech Marin, and his crossover into the Chicano performance art world of the 1960s and 1970s — all of which shaped Mexican American culture.
Emmy Awards Nomination, Television Academy, 2022
Winner: 2 x National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Awards, 2022
Winner: 2 x Southern California Journalism Awards, 2022
Watch full documentary: PBSSoCal
Pilot EP / Director / Producer: Moni Vargas
Co-Director / Producer / Camera Op: Moni Vargas
Emmy Awards Nomination, Arts, 2023
Director / Producer of Pilot Episodes: Moni Vargas
Show Commercial, Director: Moni Vargas
Director & Producer: Moni Vargas
Director / Producer / Creative Director: Moni Vargas