About the Filmmakers
We are Shari Due and Mona Maser. Nine years ago a chance meeting at Fort Collins Public Media, where Due was making promos for the station and Mona was volunteering, led to a partnership that eventually resulted in this co-producer relationship.
Shari Due
Shari Due is a documentary filmmaker, media instructor, and freelance video producer.
Due completed another feature documentary this past October, LOS BETABELOROS:The Beet Workers, a film that honors the contribution of the Hispanic & Mexican beet workers in Northern Colorado.
Due’s first documentary feature was a series pilot commissioned for Algerian Canal network and looked at the issue of homelessness, specifically the increasing criminalization of homelessness in the United States. It was told entirely through the stories of the people who live on the streets of Fort Collins and those who work closely with the homeless. Viewers loved the story and the way it was told so much that it became the storytelling standard for her films that followed. The film was used by local non-profits to expand services for folks who are homeless in the community.
Due has covered such subjects in short films as dumpster diving to reduce landfill waste 210_Million_Tons, the upside of the economic downturn (Renaissance), and gentrification, (Desplazado and Beer Bands Bikes & Broke).
Due and Maser partnered on the independent feature, Desplazado. She wrote and edited a feature film companion to that film, which focused on a specific phase of gentrification—when the artists move in and make a place “cool.” This film, Beer Bands Bikes & Broke highlights the growing pains of a city that markets itself on arts and culture, where the artists who make it a place worthy of living can no longer afford to live.
A recipient of the Colorado Creative Industries Career Advancement Award, Due holds a B.S. in Education, an M.S. in Counseling, and is an alumni of Colorado State University’s Journalism and Media Communications program. She teaches video production at Front Range Community College, is a professional consultant at Rocky Mountain Student Media (the CSU student media corporation), and is a freelance video producer specializing in storytelling through her company, Be Reel Pictures.
Mona Maser
Mona Maser is a filmmaker, photographer and freelance video producer.
Maser shot, produced and edited her first documentary feature 21 years ago. Since then she has crewed for several Colorado independent films, produced short documentaries and wrote & directed three narrative short films. See Maser on IMDB.
Maser co-produced Desplazado with Due, a documentary examining the nexus of people and economic growth in a nuanced investigation of the many facets of gentrification.
Two years ago Maser produced a video for The Quarter Project of Northern Colorado, Inc. featuring their GEMS (Girls in Engineering & Science). The film was shown at the Otter Box Digital Dome Theater at the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery for their annual event which raised funds to send the GEMS girls to STEM camp.
In January, 2019, Maser was a recipient of the Colorado Creative Industries Career Advancement Award.
In the fall of 2019, Maser produced 10 training videos for the Statistic Department at CSU.
Mona shoots 4K video on the Lumix GH4 as well as still photographs and serves as camera and co-writer on documentary films co-produced with Due.
Affiliations
The two feature directors are members of the Denver chapter of Film Fatales, a national community of female feature film directors and Colorado Independent Women in Film, have collaborated with NoCoast Artists in Fort Collins, and been a recipient of Women Make Movies fiscal sponsorship program and a Colorado Creative Industries Career Advancement Award.