Diana Cervera

Mujer Mariposa

The Artist

Diana is a transborder Chicana artist, cultural worker, and arts administrator working across the San Diego–Tijuana borderlands. With over a decade of experience across nonprofit, government, and cultural sectors, her work centers equity, collaboration, and the amplification of stories historically marginalized from dominant narratives.

Grounded in her background in Ethnic Studies, Diana has developed community-rooted programs and cross-border cultural projects alongside artists, migrant and refugee communities, youth, and grassroots organizations. Her interdisciplinary practice spans filmmaking, oral history, and participatory approaches to storytelling, exploring themes of identity, migration, belonging, and representation.

Diana is the Director and Executive producer of Mujer Mariposa, her first feature-length documentary, which explores identity, diaspora, and the intergenerational experiences of migrant and refugee women. The film was created in collaboration with Magdalena Ramirez Cerda (Cinematographer/Editor) and has been featured in several film festivals including the Immigration Film Festival in Washington DC, Intercultural Voices Film Festival in Los Angeles and was recently awarded Audience Award for Best Documentary at Fist up Film Festival in Berkeley CA. The film will have its Mexico Premiere at Festival Internacional de Cine en Ensenada.

Diana currently serves as the Director of Programs and Community Engagement for the San Diego Latino Film Festival and leads monthly educational programming with California Lawyers for the Arts.

Diana Cervera

The Project

With support from the Artists Count grant, Diana will expand the public impact of her recently completed feature-length documentary Mujer Mariposa. Created over seven years, the film follows three daughters of migrant and refugee women as they navigate identity, family, and what it means to find home between cultures.

Building  the film’s impact campaign in San Diego across public programs and activations will create opportunities for audiences to engage in conversations around migration, memory, identity, and intergenerational experiences. At a time where these topics are of critical importance the film provides an entry point into the topics that are a fundamental part of the political landscape of our borderlands. Three public screenings will be developed alongside community workshops across the San Diego–Tijuana borderlands, with two activities in San Diego and one in Tijuana.

Funding will also support the development of a community-based oral history project that brings together migrant and refugee stories from both sides of the border. The project will culminate in an exhibition presented alongside the film’s screenings, creating additional opportunities for community members to share their experiences and see their stories reflected in a broader collective narrative.

Together, these activities will strengthen partnerships with community organizations and cultural institutions while creating spaces for connection, storytelling, and dialogue among migrant, refugee, and first-generation communities across the borderlands. Artists Count funding will provide essential resources to amplify the stories of migrant and refugee women, and champion greater representation of women in film.

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