In Memoriam:
By Elia Esparza
She was 53. Shawna Baca died Sunday, May 28, 2024, after battling an aggressive and terminal cancer.
A gifted cinematographer, writer and director, Shawna was born on September 9, 1970, and was raised in Montebello, California. She founded 4 Elements Productions where she amassed 14 producer credits with several of her award-winning short films having garnered recognition at national and international film festivals and showcased around the globe.
She is best known for short films, Girl Please! (2006), Isabel (2007) 3:52 (2005), and Rose’s Garden (2003). Her 3:52 stars America Ferrara and was the recipient of the 2006 Audience Award from the San Diego Women Film Festival and the Tabloid Witch Award, an Honorable Mention in 2007.
In 2007, Shawna was selected by Steven Spielberg and Mark Burnett from more than 20,000 filmmakers to be part of his 2007 FOX reality show, On The Lot after catching their attention with her short film, Isabel.
Her other producing credits include Laseerium, Désirée, The Lesson, Bearspring, Her Morbid Desires, We Are All Latino, Tomoko’s Kitchen, Dolorosas, Man, Where’s My Shoe?, Impersonal Impression
Los Angeles’ La Opinion newspaper awarded Shawna the “Mujeres Destacadas” Award. She was also honored at the Latina Symposium (Washington D.C.) with an award and recognition for being a “Latina Entrepreneur,” and given a scholarship to the prestigious Tuck School of Business Executive Education Program at Dartmouth University by Latina Style magazine.
She is the author of a transformational 2020 memoir, “Fear Less: An Agoraphobic’s Journey Out of Mental Purgatory,” which chronicles her debilitating panic attacks and agoraphobia at the age of 21 that left her sequestered in her home for over a year. It was at this time that her Indigenous mother took her to see a “medicine man” (shaman) on the Pala Indian reservation and cured her in a sweat lodge ceremony. Shawna states in her book, that this shaman, “…cured me that night in a sweat lodge ceremony, which was nothing short of a modern-day exorcism.”
This experience led her on a lifelong journey of exploration into Indigenous shamanism, spirituality and the unknown.
How this writer met Shawna was through her book and it was such a gift to be able to talk about our childhood traumas and losses. For me, it was a cherished gift to have someone else to talk about life challenges and dealing with ongoing childhood PTSD.
A book excerpt, “Fear Less: Conquering the Demons of Mental Purgatory” goes on to detail a labyrinthine journey that explores my road to healing using various Western and Eastern modalities, conventional therapist, twelve step programs, and spiritual healers, all of whom helped me learn how to deprogram the emotional condition that resulted from childhood trauma and a series of loses and to instill tools to reprogram new life conditions and achieve breakthroughs that re-awakened my true self. It is a gritty inner exploration into the darkness that lived inside me, and how I challenged and re-framed my mind to face those inner demons to cultivate new life conditions.”
How did Shawna got into filmmaking? Her book states that she got her first taste of filmmaking at the tender age of six when John Cassavetes rented her uncle’s house to make the movie, A Killing of a Chinese Bookie. Four years later, her uncle lost her at the wrap party for One from the Heart, where she met Francis Ford Coppola. When he asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she answered confidently, “You.” He tried to talk her out of it, but she held her ground. And, how grateful we are that she did.
Shawna was born in east Los Angeles. She’s part Apache, Yaqui, Spanish and French. Family legend has it that Shawna was named after a medicine woman named Schwanawa who healed her great grandmother after an illness. A promise was made by her great grandfather that one of their daughter’s would be named after her.
Shawna was the chosen one to fulfill her great grandfather’s promise… may your celestial angel spirits from your indigenous birthrights—guide your mystical journey home.
Godspeed, Shawna. Thank you for your contributions. You will be missed.