Masa Films is a production company founded by Alejandra Vasquez & Sam Osborn, dedicated to telling character-driven and verite-forward stories about the Americas.
Alejandra Vasquez and Sam Osborn are Mexican-American filmmakers based in Los Angeles. GOING VARSITY IN MARIACHI, their debut feature-length film as co-directors, was given the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Documentary Competition.
Their 2022 short FOLK FRONTERA was awarded the Jury Prize for Best Texas Short at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival and was presented by Independent Lens and PBS. Other short works include VARSITY ORO for Pop-Up Magazine, NIGHT SHIFT, a four-part docuseries about those who work the graveyard shift, and EATING, a 10-episode docuseries for Topic.
They are represented by WME.
masa films is winner of the summer 2024 amplifier grant by the outrage.
Alejandra Vasquez is a Mexican-American filmmaker raised between rural Texas and the San Francisco Bay Area. Her feature directorial debut, GOING VARSITY IN MARIACHI—co-directed with Sam Osborn—premiered at Sundance 2023, won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award in the U.S. Documentary Competition, and is now streaming on Netflix.
Her short films include Folk Frontera (Independent Lens), winner of Best Texas Short at SXSW; Baca (LA Times Short Docs), commissioned by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); and When It’s Good, It’s Good (POV Shorts), a co-production with Latino Public Broadcasting currently streaming on the Criterion Channel.
Alejandra began her career as a producer at Hard Working Movies, working alongside Lori Cheatle. She has contributed to acclaimed documentaries such as MATANGI/MAYA/M.I.A. (2018), US KIDS (2020), and most recently co-produced Nanfu Wang’s HBO Original Documentary, NIGHT IS NOT ETERNAL (2024). Additional producing credits include PLAN C (2023), Tracy Droz Tragos’s film about the underground abortion pill network, and the Topic Studios series Night Shift and Eating.
Her work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Catapult, SFFILM, ITVS, PBS, Field of Vision, and the International Women’s Media Foundation. She’s currently a US@250 Fellow with New America reporting on newcomer public school programs, previous fellowships include the Los Angeles Individual Artist Fellowship, IF/Then Shorts Edit Lab, the Logan Nonfiction Fellowship, and the Film Independent CNN Docuseries Intensive.
Now based in Los Angeles, Alejandra co-founded Masa Films with Sam Osborn, where they are developing nonfiction and narrative projects. She is writing her first feature script, HALF ORANGE, with support from the SFFILM Rainin Grant.
Sam Osborn is a director and editor based in Los Angeles. His most recent film Going Varsity in Mariachi, co-directed with Alejandra Vasquez, premiered at Sundance 2023 and won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award for the U.S. Documentary Competition. It went on to screen at festivals worldwide and is currently streaming on Netflix.
Sam’s debut feature-length documentary as a director, Universe, about Wallace Roney, the only protege of Miles Davis, was awarded Best Music Documentary by the International Documentary Association in 2020.
His short-format films include Folk Frontera, a surrealist portrait of the West Texas borderlands, which won the SXSW Jury Award for Texas Shorts; Night Shift, a series for Topic about New Yorkers who work the graveyard shift; and Language Keepers, a hybrid documentary project meant to help sustain the endangered Athabaskan language of Gwich’in, which premiered at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.
Sam is also a producer and editor of special documentary projects at The Nocturnists, a long-running medical storytelling podcast. His work on the series Shame in Medicine: The Lost Forest and Post-Roe America won consecutive Anthem Awards and was nominated for a Webby in Best Limited-Series & Specials.
Before starting Masa Films, Sam worked as a commercial and branded-content director for such brands as Covergirl, Walmart, Tinder, and Jazz at Lincoln Center. His work as a documentary filmmaker began at VICE (RIP), directing films for series such as Toxic, Americana, and Vice News.