Firelight Media
Ximena Amescua Cuenca is the Senior Manager of Grantmaking at Firelight Media, a nonprofit supporting nonfiction filmmakers of color. She oversees all program aspects of the grant-making initiatives, including the William Greaves R&D Fund for mid-career BIPOC filmmakers in the US, Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil, the Impact Campaign Fund to support audience engagement and impact campaigns for documentaries, and the Firelight Fund, supporting Black, Brown, and Indigenous stories from development through distribution, with a focus on those who are telling urgent stories and using their craft to advance social justice.
Ximena is a Rockwood Art of Leadership MacArthur 2023 fellow, a Creative Capital “Taller for Latinx Artists” alumna and the director of the short documentary Juanita, which had its premiere at the 2015 Margaret Mead Film Festival. She is a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia (BGDM) and the Global Impact Producers Alliance (GIPA). Ximena was born and raised in Tijuana, Mexico, and holds a B.A. in Anthropology and Media Studies from Pitzer College, as well as a MA in Cinema Studies with a graduate certificate in Culture and Media from New York University. Ximena lives in Brooklyn, New York.
