Writer, Director
Growing up, Kaila would feel such a connection with her favorite shows and movies, she would talk about the characters as if they were her friends. Needless to say, she always felt a connection to film but it wasn’t until her third year of undergraduate education at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) that the idea of filmmaking as a career occurred to Kaila. She saw a friend editing a travel video and started asking questions. She changed her major that week.
She started on her own, working on editing programs and creating YouTube videos and recaps of events for her sorority, Sigma Kappa, then started taking film classes, and eventually started making short films. Once she started, she couldn’t stop.
Kaila was the founding president of UCR’s first film club, R’Shorts, and made it her mission to not only help herself grow, but to create a collaborative space where other filmmakers on campus could come together. She developed a production layout to ensure every member gained hands-on experience in production and led the club through its first three projects, each one improving dramatically. Kaila received numerous recognitions throughout the department including the Chancellor's performance award for outstanding work in directing.
Kaila went on to complete her MFA in Film Directing at Chapman University where she received a fellowship award for talent displayed in the application process and was selected to direct a thesis level web series pilot in her first year. While at Chapman, Kaila directed her Graduate Thesis film titled Touch. A story that follows a 14-year-old girl coming of age as she starts to explore her connection to intimate touch.
Kaila chooses to focus her film making skills on telling stories that validate young females and their experiences. She hopes that these stories make young girls, especially minorities, feel more comfortable telling their own stories, like so many films, shows and books did for her. After reading “I am not your perfect Mexican Daughter” and “The Poet x” her idea of storytelling completely changed. There was something validating about reading the nuanced thoughts she once had growing up with and she strives to give the same comforting knowledge of not being alone to the next generation and generations to come
