Andrés Enrique Arias

I have always been an avid documentary cinema viewer, but I never imagined I would actually end up making my own film. This all changed when, in the late 90s, I was doing linguistic fieldwork among the Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) speaking community of Los Angeles. And coincidentally I was attending a broadcast journalism class at the University of Southern California, for which I had to write the treatment for a documentary. It seemed to me that the story of this particular group of Sephardic Jews and their vanishing language and culture was a good topic to write on for this assignment. So this is how my first documentary film, Once Upon a Time at 55^th and Hoover, came about. This documentary short tells the story of the Sephardic Jews from the island of Rhodes who arrived in Los Angeles in the first half of the 20^th century and established a community in the area around 55^th St and Hoover, what is today South Central Los Angeles. You can learn more about this film, watch the trailer or purchase a copy of the DVD here.

Once I got into the world of filmmaking it was only natural, for a musician like me, to start documenting some of my music experiences. You may watch my music videos in my Youtube channel.

I am currently working on a new project about Sephardic cooking.