Curtis Francisco-Sarmiento Yap grew up with visions of his Filipino grandfather fighting in WWII, insecurity with his Filipino and Mexican roots, finding a reason to get out of bed every morning, and watching movies for comfort. He disappointed his parents by dropping out of an engineering program to study literature and film, eventually transferring to UC Berkeley. In his senior year he was given the opportunity to DP a few student shorts and the encouragement from his peers gave him the confidence he needed to pursue cinematography professionally. His parents came around when they realized he wouldn’t give up, and now they fully support him, even indulging in him carrying a camera around the house taking flattering and not-so-flattering photos.

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In his work, Curtis is just trying to tie the different aspects of himself into the frame: heritage, mental health, cinema, and love. The hard part is finding out what goes where.

 

Curtis also aspires to own a cat, learn how to swim, fall in love, and become a competitive archer. And while he knows that films won’t solve society’s problems, they can at least bring about the possibility that anything can be solved.