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 director and producer. Her directorial feature-length debut Going Varsity in Mariachi, co-directed with Sam Osborn, premiered at Sundance 2023 and won the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award in the U.S. Documentary Competition. The film screened at 30+ film festivals around the world and is streaming on Netflix.
Alejandra’s surrealist short “Folk Frontera,” had a broadcast premiere in the PBS special The Latino Experience, was acquired by Independent Lens, won the SXSW Jury Award for Texas Shorts, and is taught in San Diego public schools. Her latest short film about the boom-and-bust oil cycles in her rural Texas hometown, “When It’s Good, It’s Good,” co-produced with Latino Public Broadcasting premiered on POV Shorts.
She cut her teeth on the producing side as part of the teams behind the acclaimed features Matangi/Maya/M.IA. (2018), Us Kids (2020), and Plan C (2023). She was the lead producer for the Topic four-part series Night Shift and eight-part series Eating.
Her work has been supported by the Ford Foundation, Field of Vision, SFFILM, ITVS, the International Women’s Media Foundation, and more. Fellowships and residencies include the Logan Nonfiction Fellowship, Film Independent Docuseries Intensive, the IF/Then South Shorts Lab, and the Catapult Research Program. Alejandra is based in Los Angeles.
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.