Legacy

Filmmaker Giovannie Espiritu traces the maternal line of her family from WW2 to present day through poetry and pictures. Winner of the 2022 Hyundai Evolve Innovation Award.

Giovannie Espiritu’s identity is inherently political: A bisexual, once-undocumented immigrant Filipina mom who spent time in a Biblical doomsday cult as a teen. Her first short film, “Ultra-Feminist,” got an Honorable Mention at Outfest:Fusion, and her second film, “ALLY 3000,” won over 12 awards at film festivals in scriptwriting, social justice, and women in film. Most of her work has taken aim at dismantling the patriarchy, healing generational trauma, and exposing systems of bias with humor. She is a member of the Alliance of Women Directors and the Producers Guild of America.

As an actress, her television credits include ER, Bones, Gilmore Girls, Trauma, Perfect Harmony, and Young Sheldon. She can currently be seen as the lead in the Amazon series, “Dyke Central,” which was featured in After Ellen, BuzzFeed, Bust Magazine and Curve Magazine as a top LGBTQ series to watch. She was nominated alongside Academy Award nominees Alfre Woodard and Amy Irving for Best Supporting Actress for the feature film, Fiona’s Script. Her other feature film work includes supporting roles in thriller “D-Railed,” with Lance Henriksen, “Middleton Christmas” with Eileen Davidson and Michael Pare, and now will be seen in Tubi’s original film, “Titanic 666,” playing Nancy, an overzealous fan to Mia, a social media influencer played by Annalynne McCord.

Recently, she was recognized as one of 23 “Most Influential Filipina Women in the World” in the Innovator & Thought Leader category by the Filipina Women’s Network and given a “Special Thanks” credit at the end of Pixar’s Turning Red for being the on-call acting coach for Rosalie Chiang. She has served on the Board of Directors for C.O.R.A. (a Bay Area domestic violence hotline and agency) and awarded a Certificate of Recognition from the Senate for her community service.

Her IRL and reel life mantra is to “Break Hearts Wide Open and Create More Moments of Joy.”

Plays in

Shorts Program V: SCENES FROM HOME