Sheerly Avni leads the Borderless VR Channel, stories written and produced by deported and migrant youth in Mexico CIty, where she is based.
Avni’s journalism has appeared in dozens of media outlets, including Salon, Esquire, LA Weekly, Variety, San Francisco Chronicle and, the various publications of the Telluride Film Festival, where she has consulted since 2010. Cinema by the Bay, her award-winning book about Northern California studios and filmmakers, was released in June 2006.
Since 2014 she has worked primarily in Mexican cinema, serving first as a consultant on the children’s series Kin (Canal Once, 2015) and then as a writer/producer on Ingobernable (Netflix, 2017). Today she is co-producing a documentary series about the relationship between US and Mexico for Netflix.
Avni has also taught writing for 20 years, working with: professional screenwriters, aspiring journalists, and most consistently, young people housed in the Northern California Juvenile Justice system (another project of New America Media, which is how she first met the founders of Kweston Media.) She currently works as a writing and filmmaking mentor for young men and women who live in Mexico City after having been deported by the Obama and Trump administrations.
