Gabriela dematteis: emmy winning producer & advocate for social justice
Written by: Milla Nguyen + Photography by: Holly Fischer
Gabriela Dematteis’s Biography:
With almost a decade of experience in the industry, she has worked for VICE Media, Refinery29, Tribeca Film Festival, Sundance Institute, Warner Bros. Television, CBS Television, Paramount Pictures, and Participant Media. Her work published on the VICE Media YouTube Channel, which has 18+ million subscribers, has notably been seen by millions of viewers worldwide. Some of her other projects have won an Emmy® Award for Outstanding Feature Story in Spanish, been published on The New Yorker Magazine's digital site, and premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival. Gabriela Dematteis grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and is proud of her Mexican and Italian American heritage. She became interested in film and photography at a young age, largely thanks to her father, international photojournalist Lou Dematteis. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Film & Television Production from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles in 2013. She spent the year following graduation volunteering full-time at a supportive housing non-profit in New York City supported by the Jesuit Volunteer Corps. She strives to bring care, compassion, empathy, and understanding to all of her projects and lead her teams in creating engaging, character-driven content for global audiences.
Her favorite part of filmmaking is the opportunity it gives her to bring people together to share people's stories. She hopes that the stories she helps spark new connections between people, new ideas, and new ways of relating to the world and each other. She is excited to help produce stories that she believes will engage, inform, surprise, and impact its viewers.
Author’s Note:
It is an honor to highlight Gabriela Dematteis as one of our Vicarious Column headliners for our first issue. In this interview, Gabriela and I spoke about a range of topics. She recalled receiving encouragement from her father when she was a teenager to submit her photographs to a competition at the Mission Cultural Center in San Francisco and being placed as a finalist. This was one of the moments when she fell in love with the idea of photography, art, and filmmaking. As a producer/filmmaker, Dematteis has learned to be adaptive and open minded when working on her projects and has become well versed in all aspects of production and filmmaking. All of these roles have shaped her enthusiastic and reliable spirit on and off-set.
Her History:
She is an alumna of the undergraduate Film and Television Production program at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. Throughout her years at LMU and beyond, she has advocated for collaborative filmmaking as well as non-profit volunteering. One of the many things that makes Gabriela admirable is that she puts work into helping her community. Today, she continues to blend filmmaking along with her desire for community to make spaces more accessible.
Gabriela Dematteis was born in Redwood City, California. When Dematteis was coming of age, San Francisco was a place that had an abundance of artists. While it’s not entirely extinguished, San Francisco later developed into Silicon Valley, leaving a void for the arts. She recalled while attending high school, her father stopped using his professional film cameras as much and she asked if she could use one of them. He taught her how to develop film and encouraged her to take photographs as they traveled.
With his encouragement, she submitted to several photo exhibitions in the Bay Area. Growing up, she also witnessed and was deeply impacted by seeing her mother work as a lawyer, always fighting for the most fair and just outcome for her clients. Her mother encouraged her to use her voice to help others and fight for social justice issues. In high school, she participated in Tiger TV, a class that broadcasted her school’s announcements and news. There, she worked in front of and behind the camera.
I asked how she would describe herself in three words. She picked the words passionate, loyal, and reliable. She said, “I know some people might equate being passionate to being emotional and think of it in a negative way. To be honest, I think it’s more of a good thing. It means you care and I want to be a filmmaker who cares.” Dematteis mentioned that working on a set can be tough. Times can get stressful. When she’s in the driver's seat, she tries to be loyal to the story and the vision of her collaborators, even if she might not always agree. She is also dedicated to being open-minded, even if she hasn’t tried something before.
Meaningful Work at VICE Media & winning her first emmy
In her career, Gabriela Dematteis worked at VICE Media for almost 9 years. She started as a production assistant, then worked her way up to associate producer, and then to producer for the company. She said, “I learned to do so many things. One project I enjoyed doing was when I interviewed my dad for a VICE project. He lived in Nicaragua during the Contra War. In the United States, people were questioning if the government was sending arms to Nicaragua to fund the Contras. One day, a cargo plane was shot down in Nicaragua, and my dad was one of the photographers who captured the moment of the pilot’s capture.” Gabriela said that was a story she grew up with and decided to pitch it to the company. In Vice’s series, “I WAS THERE,” she interviewed various people who had witnessed historic moments in time. Another project she worked on was “Ritos de Pasaje | Sicarios”, which won her an Emmy® in the Outstanding Feature Story in Spanish category at the 44th Annual News & Documentary Emmy® Awards. She said, “I remember that moment when they announced that we won. I thought it was just cool to be nominated and wasn’t totally sure if we’d win, but we did!. It was a really incredible experience.”
She spoke about how the project's purpose was to show how young men are recruited to be hit men for the Sinaloa cartel in Mexico. She said, “As an individual person, it was difficult to listen to them talk about what they did or why they wanted to be a part of this, but as a filmmaker, I had a duty to listen objectively and show how this is reality and way of life for them.”
In 2016, many Indigenous peoples and their allies came together to protest against the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. She had the opportunity to produce an interview with Chase Iron Eyes, who was one of the Indigenous people there when the protest happened. Dematteis said, “I wanted to shed light on something Indigenous people have been fighting for for centuries.. They have been protesting against the planet's destruction and it’s something we need to be aware of and support because it affects all of us.”
Community Efforts Outside of Filmmaking
Aside from filmmaking, I asked about her consistent efforts in community volunteering. While it is important to be a filmmaker, it is also important to be a steward for the next generation. Dematteis worked in both the Student Production Office and the Center for Service and Action during her time at LMU. She said, “I would often receive some confusing looks from people in the film school who didn’t understand why I would spend part of my time volunteering. Some people would say I should only be focused on working on sets, which I was. I was extremely active in the film school. I was a producer on many projects and was on set every other weekend. I helped with the industry screenings and film events. However, for me, film school wasn’t just about working on sets. I was there to educate my whole self and I did this by gaining a wider perspective outside of film too.”
She recalled that when she graduated, she was faced with a decision. Dematteis was offered a position at Paramount Studios but this would require her to stay in Los Angeles. On the other hand, she wanted to explore New York City. She decided to make the move to New York City and worked full time for one year as a Jesuit Volunteer for the nonprofit Breaking Ground, which helps provide affordable housing to people in New York. While she faced some doubt and criticism over her decision to leave LA, she remained firm. Many of her producing skills carried over into this experience. She said, “There was a tenant there who became a good friend of mine. He was like my adoptive New York dad. Unfortunately, he passed away during the beginning of the pandemic. But he taught me so much about life and giving your time to others. His friendship impacted me so much and made me a better person and thus, a better filmmaker.”
Currently, she is freelancing and trying to find her next project. She said, “ I’m excited to help support other creatives and bring their vision to life.” When she is not working, she enjoys walking along the waterfront in Brooklyn and looking across the river to see the Manhattan skyline. She enjoys playing basketball and kickball with her friends, and wants to try getting back into horseback riding even though it's a little bit harder to do in New York City.
Finally, I asked her if there was anyone she would like to thank or acknowledge for supporting her in this journey. She wants to thank both of her parents for supporting her. She would like to thank her siblings, her grandparents, and all her co-workers from over the years. She mentioned she would also like to thank her mentor in college, Marty, and also the director of the project that won both of them the Emmy. She’d also like to thank all her friends both in New York and beyond. She also mentioned she’d like to thank all of her past collaborators and even those who were critical of her. “It’s important to know and understand and be open to learning about everyone’s perspective.”
