A community leader and award-winning documentary filmmaker, Debra’s work celebrates the untold stories behind music, people, and places. Her subjects, from the underground to the iconic, delve into the richness of human experiences within our diverse and collective histories.

Debra’s filmmaking expertise ranges from story development, archival research, writing, and producing to shooting and editing.  She is a master story editor with strong skills in shaping character-driven documentary films with creativity and depth. Some of her influences include Ray Balberan, Albert Maysles, Gordon Parks, Barbara Koppel, Walter Murch, Zora Neale Hurston and the music of Stevie Wonder, Aretha Franklin, George Clinton and Grace Jones.

She produced the widely acclaimed documentary film “Beats, Rhymes, and Life: The Travels of A Tribe Called Quest” (BRL), with actor/director Michael Rapaport. An official selection at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, Beats Rhymes and Life was acquired for nationwide theatrical distribution by Sony Pictures Classics. Hailed by critics for its fervent approach and compelling story, BRL won several festival audience awards, the prestigious 2012 Producers Guild Award, and a 2012 Grammy nomination.  

Debra is also an arts educator with over two decades of experience, and an early trailblazer in youth media as the founder of Conscious Youth Media Crew, a Bay Area non-profit youth leadership program specializing in 21st-century digital filmmaking with the region’s most underserved communities. Furthermore, she is a member of the Ray Balberan Mission Mediarts Archive, working to preserve a unique collection of 16mms films shot by artists and activists during the seventies and eighties in San Francisco.