Alicia Dwyer

Alicia directed/produced XMAS WITHOUT CHINA, (SXSW, PBS, Al Jazeera), with her favorite accolades for this feature documentary being its "Best Comedy Audience Award" (Friars Club) and inclusion in Films for the Feminist Classroom. The film follows a Chinese immigrant who challenges an American family to celebrate Christmas with no Chinese products (Ovid.tv). In NINE TO NINETY, Alicia worked as director following producer Juli Vizza’s 89 year-old grandmother Phyllis as she wrestles with parting from her husband of 62 years to lighten the burden of caretaking from the daughter with whom they've been living (ITVS). This short doc screened abroad with the American Film Showcase, and engaged communities in the US through a multi-state impact campaign and wide PBS broadcast.

Alicia produced HOSTILE BORDER, which won the Audience Award for best fiction feature and a Special Jury Prize in directing at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Centering on a young woman who is deported from the US and clashes with her estranged father, who calls her a “pocha,” slang for a Mexican-American who can speak little or no Spanish, this is a taut, slow-burning thriller. (Amazon Prime)

Alicia’s directing work appeared in theaters nation-wide in BULLY, and on PBS/Independent Lens in THE CALLING. She was associate producer of the Emmy Award-nominated HBO series PANDEMIC: FACING AIDS and the Academy Award-winning feature documentary INTO THE ARMS OF STRANGERS.

Born in California, Alicia grew up in Australia, New York and Berlin. She studied German and Politics at Princeton University, and received her M.F.A. from USC film school. Now based in Los Angeles, Alicia helped start Veracity Productions, making cinema as well as media content for clients including Essie Justice Group, CarbonShack, Interscope, The Jim Henson Company, Harpo Productions, X-Prize, XQ and The California Endowment. Alicia also works as a writer, producer and creative consultant. She has taught at UC Santa Cruz and enjoys mentoring emerging filmmakers.