Her Story
About Mandana
Mandana Macdougall is an accomplished filmmaker, visual storyteller, and arts educator with more than 20 years of experience in experimental filmmaking and documentary production. She recently earned her Master of Fine Arts in Film from the California College of the Arts in 2025, further strengthening a career dedicated to creating meaningful narratives that elevate underrepresented voices, celebrate cultural heritage, and inspire social awareness. Through both independent and commissioned projects, Mandana has collaborated with museums, scholars, artists, and community leaders to produce films that preserve important histories and amplify stories that deserve greater recognition.
Throughout her career, Mandana has focused her lens on strong women, immigrant communities, artists, and cultures whose contributions are often overlooked. Among her most notable achievements is the creation of three educational documentaries about Día de los Muertos for the Oakland Museum of California, developed in close partnership with the Latino community. For two of these documentaries, she served as director, producer, and cinematographer, leading every stage of production. One film, completed just before the COVID-19 pandemic, became an invaluable educational resource when the museum was unable to host its annual exhibition in person and has since been preserved in the museum’s permanent archive, documenting a cultural celebration with more than three decades of history. Her broader body of work highlights the challenges, resilience, and achievements of artists and individuals from minority and immigrant communities, with a particular emphasis on women, mothers, and the transformative power of feminine leadership in sustaining families, cultures, and society.
In addition to her filmmaking, Mandana has served as a museum guide, art docent, educator, and community advocate, helping audiences engage more deeply with art, history, and culture. Her expertise lies at the intersection of storytelling and education, and she is continually drawn to projects that foster understanding, empowerment, and positive social change. As a single mother caring for both her son and her senior mother, she balances creative production with caregiving and community involvement, bringing empathy and purpose to every aspect of her work. Currently, she is developing an ambitious animated film project that reimagines the oldest recorded creation story in human history, a multi-year endeavor that combines original writing, illustration, and visual storytelling to bring an ancient narrative to contemporary audiences. Through every project, Mandana remains committed to preserving cultural knowledge, advocating for marginalized voices, and creating work that leaves a lasting educational and humanitarian impact.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Mandana
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to vision, more than anything - an undying vision that you can't wipe out of your mind. And of course, resilience. It takes a lot of determination and resilience to be able to keep your voice among all the noises, distractions, and disappointments, or hardships that could put an end to it. Vision and resilience are the two main keywords that have helped me keep going through everything.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I've received is to be clear and try to make sense with my words toward the goal of clarity. And to be patient when communicating with cohorts, colleagues, and people that I work for or who work for me. But probably the best advice above all is to try to make people - whether they're audience or coworkers - feel better with whatever feedback, communication, or job responsibility that I'm sharing with them.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would tell young women to have self-love and faith in who they are and their strengths. Know that we don't need to compete with our male counterparts to have our own voice. Our voice is an equal voice, but it should not be the same as a masculine voice, because masculine and feminine each have their own strength that are complimentary. We can learn from each other and each other's strengths, and boost each other's energy by being ourselves more than competing with their skills and capabilities that are sometimes in contrast with what we do as women and they are not comparable.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
The biggest challenges are that you have to comply with what you're expected to create, and many times it's about how to impress, inform, or entertain the audience in a certain way that is the goal of big companies. For instance, when I started applying for film grants, I noticed many companies, especially in this country, are looking for horror movies and want you to start your path by writing for a short horror movie. There are very few valuable organizations that provide fellowships and scholarships for progressive stories that cover preserving nature and valuable indigenous cultures, and they're hard to achieve. For people like me who aren't thinking about creating something just for entertainment, but want to create something educational and valuable that would stand the test of time, it's really challenging to find support at the beginning when nobody knows you and they don't know the potential of what you can do. As for opportunities, if you have time and a lot of patience, you can find so many places that are looking for filmmakers - The online and remote opportunities are very helpful these days. These types of situations did not exist before. You can find a cohort on the other side of the world. I've worked with people I've never met and haven't met yet, but we were able to create music pieces, edit together, consult with each other, and produce together. These are great opportunities in the film industry these days.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
In both my work and personal life, I am guided by self-love, faith, and strength. I believe that self-respect and healthy boundaries create the foundation for resilience, that faith provides purpose, perspective, and integrity in decision-making, and that strength both emotional and professional enables me to navigate challenges with perseverance and compassion. These values shape how I lead, collaborate, support others, and continue growing through both success and adversity.
Keep Exploring
More Influential Women · California
Join Influential Women and start making an impact. Register now.