Meet Our Team

WE'RE FROM KAUA'I AND ARE OF FILIPINO ANCESTRY.

STEPHANIE J. CASTILLO

Director/Executive Producer/Producer
 Stephanie is an EMMY Award-winning independent filmmaker, who has made documentaries for more than 30 years. This is her 11th documentary; her first one won an EMMY in 1993. It was for a film about Hawaii's leprosy epidemic of the late 1800's and Father Damien's intervention. SIMPLE COURAGE: AN HISTORICAL PORTRAIT FOR THE AGE OF AIDS took a look back at Hawaii's leprosy epidemic to look forward and asked how would we deal with the AIDS epidemic in the late 1980’s. Her documentaries include social and cultural histories, biographies and mini-documentaries for nonprofit organizations. She is based on Kaua’i and has filmmaking partners in Honolulu, New York City and in other parts of the U.S., and in Europe.

RANDALL FRANCISCO

Executive Director, Operations & Fundraising  
​Prior to moving to Kaua’i, Randy had a career in the University of Hawai’i system at several campuses where he held positions as a project coordinator. He managed several grants at the county, state and federal levels. His last assignment before relocating to Kaua’i was serving as a Dean of Continuing Education, Economic & Workforce Development at Leeward Community College, which included management of the unit as well as grants administration.  He is past president of the Kaua’i Chamber of Commerce and served the County of Kaua’i as the Kaua’i Film Commissioner. He is the current President of the Kaua’i Filipino Chamber of Commerce. He is currently retired and volunteers on several boards and organizations, including on the Board of Directors of the Kaua’i Philippine Cultural Center.

CHRISTOPHER BALLESTEROS

Co-Producer, Lead Researcher
Chris, whose family first came to Hawai'i from the Philippines in the early 1920s to work on the sugar plantations, wrote a capstone academic paper about the Hanapepe Massacre while studying history at Harvard. After spending several years in management consulting and venture capital, he is currently working at a digital health startup in Boston, although his family is still on Kaua'i. He has experience with non-profit fundraising and worked in technology investing with producers of other documentary films. In addition to his work on this project, he is publishing a book on the Massacre based on his Harvard thesis and more recent investigations into the tragedy.