Theatre, Film, and Digital Production graduates Saul Guardado (2024), Mary Gutierrez (2025), and Gianna Cosenza (2025) hit the ground running following graduation last spring, launching a production company called Camphor Pictures, targeting smaller, independent filmmakers. Guardado directed Camphor Pictures’ first short film, “Bienvenido.”

“It's fully in Spanish, and I wrote it in the beginning of last year, and I was only finally able to shoot it during the summer,” Guardado said. “It is on the festival circuit right now. The application has been sent. We have not been picked up by any festivals yet, so fingers crossed we'll be playing in festivals soon.”

However, it was during the final quarter of 2025 that the company really began to ramp up its work, producing two shorts directed by Cosenza. “Bless This Mess” was released on Dec. 23, 2025, and the second piece, “Love Me Not” — written by Gutierrez, who also served as the Director of Photography (DP) — is currently in post-production. Though they are new as a company, the group began working together as students at UCR and has learned much about teamwork as they create together.

“Gianna let me DP it for the first time, and that was very brave of her,” Gutierrez said. “I'm very grateful for her to do that. So it's nice that we can all trust each other to bring our projects to life.”

Each member of Camphor Pictures attested to the mentorship provided by the film department faculty, including Stu Krieger, recently retired professor of screenwriting, Patricia Cardoso, professor of filmmaking, and Christophe Katrib, assistant professor of teaching.

“[Krieger] was an amazing mentor in his class,” Guardado said,” ‘A Day in a Filmmaker's life,’ where he had people from the industry come in and give their tales of how the industry works, how certain people fall into working in the industry. It was also very eye-opening.”

“Cardoso is one of them,” Cosenza added. “She was one of, if not the only, female professor in the film department; there are other theater professors, but she was more centered on film. And a lot of what she taught was stuff that I implement now.”

Staff and faculty in the department have inspired their students so effectively through both educational and personal guidance. Katrib, who Gutierrez considered one of her mentors, did this especially well.

“He has classes that make you do work,” Gutierrez said. “It's not just, ‘Do this and that.’ He really gets you to actually do stuff, and just be like, ‘Hey, tell the stories that matter. There's a lot that needs to have a light shone on it and have humanity put to it.’ I think he really makes you do the small steps that you might not want to do, but it makes you better in the long run. And he has that great energy of just being a good person. I feel like that’s good to be in filmmaking, too.”

As a supporter of independent filmmaking, the company directs its outreach toward surrounding communities and student filmmakers. Camphor Pictures recently directed a crew call for a new short film open to all UCR students via UCR’s film club, R’Shorts. Their current project, “Chismografo,” was advertised in joint posts on the Instagram accounts of both organizations.

“Because we're so close to the area, it is very nice to work with people at UCR, like R’Shorts members, because we were once R’Shorts members,” Cosenza said. “But we're definitely open to anyone near us willing to work on a set with us.”

Beyond clubs or community, the members of Camphor emphasize the importance of finding like-minded people in order to move forward in the film industry, and say it is important that current students learn how to do so.

“Find people,” Gutierrez said, “not only your friends and those you get along with, but those you work well together with, and you have similar creative visions, and you have trust in each other when it comes to creative projects. That's also how you get asked to be on more sets, too. Networking — that's what film is. That's what this industry is, is that you have to know the right people, and you have to network. But it starts with college filmmaking, right from the start. I like to think of it as just making friends.”

FEATURED PHOTO. Mary Gutierrez '25, director of photography for Camphor Pictures' third short film, points something out to the crew. Photo by Gianna Cosenza