The Team

Noemi began her 9-year journey with the 65th Infantry Regiment when she produced a short film on the Borinqueneers which was selected to participate in the 2000 Westchester Film Festival and 1999 New York Latino Film & Video Festival. Before that, she was a freelance advertising consultant and producer to major advertising agencies for the Hispanic commercial market. A former professional actress, she has extensive experience in theater, television, industrial films and commercials for both the English and Spanish markets. Noemi was a Finalist for the 2008 Estela Award given by the National Association of Latino Independent Producers which honors talented Latino/a filmmakers who, either through a stunning debut or a steady rise in a relatively short period of time, have distinguished themselves through their work to date. She has been honored by the National Guard, Comité Noviembre of New York, the Instituto de Puerto Rico, NJ Statewide Parade Committee and the Latina Women’s Council of Mercer County, New Jersey. Noemi has conducted numerous presentations on the 65th Infantry at various corporations, military facilites and community organizations. The film was an Official Selection at a number of film festivals and won a number of awards,  including the Military Channel Award at the GI Film Festival in Washington, DC. Other short films she has produced include: The Priest’s Wife which won the Documentary Category at the Dig-It-All Film Festival and the Viking Film Festival; The Paramount Movie Palace highlights the history of Peekskill’s 1920’s art-deco movie palace; Dancing to this Own Beat: Hip Hop Legend Jorge “Popmaster Fabel” Pabon profiles one of the pioneers of the hip hop dance movement; Surviving the American Dream which follows one immigrant’s experience in the United States and Native Poem, an experimental piece of Native American dance and poetry. Noemi is a Board Member of the Borinqueneers Park Education Alliance. Born in Sabana Grande, Puerto Rico, she was raised in Spanish Harlem and has a degree in Education from New York University and a Certificate in Digital Filmmaking from SUNY Westchester Community College.

Raquel has 30 years of experience with the public broadcasting system in production, program development and management, beginning in l968 at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. She has worked at 3 public television stations; WNET-13 in New York; WETA-26 in Washington DC; and WGBH-TV, Boston, where she spent 2 years as a producer/host of her own series, La Plaza, and a decade as Executive Producer for Community and Cultural Programming. In l990, she formed Ortiz/Simon Productions focusing on multi-cultural projects, including an outstanding documentary on Puerto Rico/US relations, Mi Puerto Rico, which premiered on PBS in l996. Raquel later became Senior Producer for VPG, Inc., a multi-media production house of educational textbook publishers. She is a graduate of the National Hispana Leadership Institute and is currently working as a free-lance creative director, producer and multi-media consultant. She has been honored with numerous awards, including regional and national Emmys, Silver and Golden Apples and CPB Programming citations.

Founder of ArtMedia, Miguel is a director, composer and award-winning editor. His projects have been showcased in dances, concerts, multimedia productions, films, documentaries and several PBS programs. His credits among others include Frontline, La Plaza and Greater Boston Arts, as well as a 52 part educational series entitled Destinos which was broadcast nationally. He has composed the music for Español en Vivo, a bilingual children’s project published by Simon and Shuster and Lenguaje and Alfamigos published by Houghton Mifflin. Most recently he produced, directed and edited Mickey Mouse Monopoly: Disney, Childhood and Corporate Power and Beyond Good & Evil: Children, Media and Violent Times, both distributed by Media Education Foundation. He is Chilean.

Patricia is a documentary filmmaker with fifteen years experience in national public television programs. Recently she wrote and co-produced The Latino Paradox, a documentary on Latino health for a new series on health disparities in the U.S. As a producer and co-producer at WGBH-Boston she has worked on the historical documentary series They Made America (PBS, 2004), Reconstruction: The Second Civil War (PBS, 2004) and Chicago: City of the Century (PBS, 2003). She was nominated for a Writers Guild award in 2005 and in 1999 received an Emmy for research. Her work has also been recognized by the Organization of American Historians (Erik Barnouw award for outstanding historical program). Recently, Patricia has acted as writing and story consultant on several documentaries for film and television, among them Traces of the Trade (2007), Buddy (2005), and Damrell’s Fire (2005). She is a native of Spain.

Hector Elizondo is an accomplished film, theater and television actor, as well as a director and producer with a career spanning 40 years. He is a five-time Emmy Award nominee and won the award in 1997 for his portrayal of Dr. Phillip Watters in Chicago Hope, on CBS. He also received three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for the role. He was nominated for both a Golden Globe and an American Comedy Award for his portrayal of a hotel manager in Pretty Woman. Elizondo has been nominated and won multiple other awards for his work on small and big screens, including seven ALMA Award nominations and two wins (Chicago Hope, 1994, and Borrowed Hearts, 1997). He recently received the Diversity Awards’ Integrity Award as well as Nosotros’ Lifetime Achievement Award for the quality of roles he has chosen during his career.

Elizondo’s film credits include Pretty Woman, Runaway Bride, American Gigolo, The Flamingo Kid, Nothing in Common, Young Doctors in Love, The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Tortilla Soup, Georgia Rule, The Princess Diaries, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and Love in the Time of Cholera.

David was an accomplished actor, director, poet, author and radio personality of renown in Puerto Rico. During his long and respected career, he performed to sold-out poetry recitals throughout Puerto Rico, recorded 8 poetry records and published 3 books of poetry. He could be heard on the radio stations, La Cadena Radio Reloj, and on Radio Isla 1320 every Friday at 7:00 PM where he hosted a music and poetry program called Tiempo de amar (A Time to Love). He directed several films and television specials, amongst them: Un abajito y queriendo with the group Haciendo Punto en Otro Son, La juguetería encantada and La sombra de una huella, a filmic poem about Old San Juan. He was the voice-over announcer in many commercials of several important large corporations.  David passed away on July 19, 2014.