BraveMaker LA
Join us for our monthly time of networking and collaboration at our LA meet-up hosted by fillmmaker Tony Gapastione, founder of BraveMaker. If you want to work more in the film industry, it requires building relationship with others who are actively working n the film industry. Make friends. Make Moves. Make movies.
Date: Thursday, March 12th, 2026
Time: 3:30pm (DOORS OPEN) Event starts promptly 4pm. We will be hosting a live filmmaker panel.
Location: LA CONNECTION THEATER in Burbank
Address: 3435 Magnolia Blvd.
Come ready to mingle, make new connections, and perhaps even find your next creative collaborator. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to be a part of the BraveMaker film community we are building from LA to the SF BAY. We can’t wait to see you there!
Panelists TBA
Then we will move across the street to:
Location: THE NEW DEAL for light bites (buy your own drinks)
Address: 3501 Magnolia Blvd.
GUESTS:
William Caballero is an American filmmaker whose work merges documentary, animation, and handcrafted miniature worlds to explore memory, migration, faith, and the emotional architecture of family. Across film, television, and short-form media, Caballero has developed a singular visual language rooted in tactile set-building, intergenerational storytelling, and a deep reverence for his Puerto Rican heritage.
Caballero first gained widespread recognition in 2015 as the creator of the HBO series Gran’Pa Knows Best, which premiered on HBO and ran for two seasons. Centered on 3D-printed miniature recreations of his Puerto Rican grandfather, the series combined playful scale with emotional depth, redefining what personal storytelling could look like on television. Its inventive approach to memory and intergenerational dialogue positioned Caballero as a bold new voice in hybrid nonfiction storytelling. His feature-length personal documentary TheyDream premiered at Sundance in 2026, where it received the NEXT Special Jury Award for Creative Expression. Over five years, Caballero directed, produced, wrote, shot, animated, and storyboarded the film himself, designing and fabricating dozens of intricate miniature sets, characters, and props by hand. The result is a visually daring and emotionally resonant portrait of his Puerto Rican family—a meditation on generational memory, grief, resilience, and the fragile beauty of everyday life.
Traci Hays is a DGA award–nominated director known for crafting female-centric, genre-blending stories with a strong visual edge. She currently has two A&E Lifetime Original features slated for release in 2026: an international holiday rom-com and a true-crime thriller starring Stana Katic (Castle). Her previous directing credits include the Fox Entertainment-produced Tubi Original On the Run, winner of four Telly Awards and landed on Tubi’s Most Liked List; international dark comedy My Bloody Galentine, and psychological thriller Blood, Sweat and Cheer, named one of Tubi’s Top 10 Originals by Vulture and Screen Rant. Traci’s bold visual style is rooted in over a decade of hands-on production design experience, working across more than 30 film and television projects with A-list talent including Michael Shannon, Kate Hudson, and Josh Duhamel. A cum laude graduate of Chapman University, she honed her craft under industry legends Randal Kleiser (Grease), Martha Coolidge (Valley Girl), and Oscar-nominated production designer Lawrence G. Paull (Back to the Future).
Landi Maduro is an award-winning writer, director, and producer with over 10 years of experience in the film industry. Since launching her production company, Bluechild Entertainment, in 2012, she has directed and produced short films, feature films, music videos, commercials, business tutorials, and documentaries. Her documentary, The Silent Killer: Prostate Cancer in the African American Community, is currently streaming on Tubi TV and Amazon Prime. This award-winning film was screened for the Congressional Black Caucus and has been utilized by healthcare professionals and scholars to raise awareness about the health disparities African American men face regarding prostate cancer.
Recently, Landi worked on the faith-based film Driving Force, available on Tubi, and the female boxing franchise Lola 2, available on the AMC/AllBlk network. She was a producer on the unscripted show Flipped Lifestyle, of which she also directed 6 episodes, that is currently streaming on Lifetime Real Women and the CW Network. She is currently in post-production with the documentary Barriers Included and in pre-production with the documentary The Ties That Bind: Prominent Cancers in African American Families.
Landi teaches filmmaking to adults and teens and offers private consulting to indie filmmakers. She is passionate about mentoring emerging filmmakers as they develop their cinematic voice. She recently launched Bluechild Academy, a virtual film school where indie filmmakers learn how to create cinematic films and generate revenue. She is the author of the planner/workbook The Ultimate Feature Film Production Planner, a 12-month blueprint that lays out timeline-based strategies, ideas, and tips to help filmmakers achieve profit-driven results. Landi is also the proud Founder and President of Women of Color Filmmakers (WOCF), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting, skill-building, and networking for female filmmakers pursuing careers in film and television.