“If your dream only includes you, it's too small.”
This quote from Ava Duvernay has been a guiding light in everything we do.
Heroine Films is a full-service video production company and creative collective of talented and passionate collaborators. We work with agencies, brands, production companies, nonprofits, independent filmmakers, and other organizations to tell stories that matter.
We believe in creative production that is diverse, inclusive, and joyful — free from layers and friction, made for an agile project-based world.
Andrea Nordgren
Andrea founded Heroine Films as a values-led creative production collective with a passion for championing diverse stories, creators, communities, and causes.
She has worked as an executive producer and creative director in agencies, brands, and freelance across a number of industries including healthcare, hospitality, financial, education, pharma, agriculture, tech and food & beverage. Andrea has led teams in developing creative platforms and integrated campaigns including branded content, digital, print, video and film, motion graphics, social, OOH, and radio. She has more than 25 years experience in agency strategy and leadership, managing creative teams from writers, designers, art directors, and video creators to external partners, post-production houses, and crews.
A persistent ally and activist for underrepresented voices and stories, she serves as an industry mentor and. advocates for representation in front of and behind the lens. She is a member of Alliance for Women Directors and was Executive Producer on the 3% Movement team for ten years, a conference and community sparking positive change in representation in advertising and media, and beyond.
Say hello: andrea@heroinefilms.tv
Custom inclusive teams for your project
We quickly custom-build each team, ensuring the ideal creative, production, and budget fit. We are committed to inclusive productions and creating a space of belonging for all, including women, BIPOC, LGBTQ+, and other historically-excluded communities.
We believe in:
Advocating for an equitable ecosystem in production.
Championing diverse voices, creators, and crew.
Creating work that is ethically and sustainably produced.
Celebrating underrepresented stories and creators.
THE COLLECTIVE
Photographer
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A versatile photographer who specializes in events coverage and photojournalism. His passion, however, resides in his street-level photography where he is able to connect to his subjects and learn from different cultural perspectives.
Armando is a photographer based out of Denver, CO, born in Los Angeles, CA and raised in Lompoc, a city on California’s central coast. At the age of 20, he joined the Air Force, serving for six years, including a six month tour in Balad, Iraq in 2005. After his time in the military, Armando attended Metro State University of Denver, graduating with a bachelor’s degree in political science and sociology.
Armando helped co-found Theyshootn, a collective of like-minded visual storytellers. As a group, Theyshootn has hosted several events and exhibits in the Denver area, bringing together photography and philanthropy to speak on a wide array of social justice issues.
Both Armando and Theyshootn have been featured by 9News, Denver 7, 303 Magazine, Westword, Denverite, Colorado Public Radio and Rocky Mountain PBS. His photography has also been featured in exhibits at Denver International Airport, History Colorado Center and the Denver Art Museum.
Producer
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Mandi is highly experienced in producing, directing and managing video, digital campaigns, social media and photography as well as entire brand accounts. Her work ranges from productions with Fortune 100 brands like GE and Northwestern Mutual to NBA and NFL athlete brand sponsorships to music videos with John Legend, Sarah Bareilles, and Wiz Khalifa.
She prides herself on maintaining relationships with agencies, corporations, artists, filmmakers and contacts she has worked with since the day she began her career. She says being on set with teams and clients you’ve known for almost 20 years is like being on a well-organized family vacation (so much fun with people you know all too well)!
She credits her love of learning for allowing her to have so many amazing experiences - traveling to the Amazon, working with music legends, NBA athletes, recording albums with indigenous tribes, filming a live scoring session for major motion picture, a tv show about whiskey, interviewing hundreds of truly amazing people and simply taking part in the telling of so many beautiful stories.
Creative Director
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Blake Jackson is multi-disciplinary visual artist based in Denver.
Beginning his career with iPhone photography, Blake’s journey has now led him to focusing on directing, creative direction and producing. A proud father, activist and community leader, Blake’s work is highly influenced by his work within his community and obsession with cinema.
Filmmaker
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Cheshire Li (they/them) is a queer and non-binary first-generation Chinese-American director, filmmaker, and photographer based in Denver, Colorado. They work as a freelance adventure filmmaker and photographer with experience as a high-angle operator, as well as experience shooting in high alpine environments, on backcountry tours and on mountain bikes. Their work spans commercial, narrative and documentary sets in camera, grip and electric departments.
Well-traveled and always seeking the next adventure, Cheshire cultivates a deep curiosity for new experiences, a heart for community, and a passion for all the underlying stories that move and shake our world. As a child of immigrants, they bring a complex, inclusive, and compassionate perspective to their storytelling. They are deeply passionate about elevating underrepresented voices in the outdoors and working with other BIPOC and queer creatives behind the camera. The heart of their creative work aims to explore inclusive and intersectional ideas in film while holding the complexity and nuance of those liminal spaces.
Cheshire believes that filmmaking and storytelling are the most powerful ways we can rewrite the myths that inform our daily lives, and in turn, empower these beliefs to shape our world. They are always learning, listening, and exploring with their camera in an attempt to bear witness to the narratives unfolding around them.
They are an active member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia and a founding member of the Emergent Media Collective, a Denver-based queer and trans film collective that aims to disrupt the extractive nature of film to move towards a more just and liberated future.
Photographer & Filmmaker
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A Brazilian multimedia artist based in Milwaukee, WI. He spent the past 11 years studying and working with all aspects of photography and film to grow a wide range of skills. He started his career specializing in photo retouching for advertising and fashion, working with large corporations such as ArcelorMittal, Vale, and the major universities, state banks and the government of Espírito Santo as well as photographing and filming for his own company, Original Creative Productions.
To further expand his knowledge and his love of academia, he pursued and was granted a scholarship to study in Portugal. And in December 2022 completed his masters degree in Cinema. Soon after, he met his now wife, immigrated to the US and now works as a freelance retoucher, photographer and filmmaker. In the short time he has been here he has been able to work with amazing professionals and looking forward to cooperating with many more creative minds, exchanging experiences and having fun in the process.
Besides work, Jean loves to find and cook good food, to read (favorite fiction book: Stieg Larsson's Millennium TriJean Vargaslogy), to listen (or go to a live concert) to some weird music, and having a good midwestern beer with friends in some small brewery while telling everyone about the amazing Brazilian delicacies and culture.
https://jeanvargas.myportfolio.com
Cinematographer & Filmmaker
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At age 16, Kim took the brave step of transferring to Denver School of the Arts, voluntarily making herself the "new kid" just to begin pursuing an education in filmmaking. Around this time she also began attending summer filmmaking workshops instructed by Scott Kinnamon - a person who would eventually become one of her most important mentors and a dear friend. She would later work as a mentor in these workshops, and found it extremely fulfilling to pass her love of filmmaking down to younger generations.
Kim earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Film & Television from the University of Colorado Denver. These years would contain numerous transformative experiences for her. She began working as a PA on various commercial sets, expanding her network of local filmmakers. During her junior year, she wrote an episodic screenplay that was awarded a $5,000 production grant by the college's faculty. Her senior thesis film, Strawberry Milk, won Best Film of the 2018 cohort. Before graduating, Kim got hired as an editor at a local video production company. She would spend the next four years at this company, growing from an editor to a production coordinator, and finally, an account manager. Kim has spent the last 3 years working full time on a marketing team, producing and directing commercials for a local credit union.
Over the years, Kim has had a few opportunities to work on documentaries, some narrative shorts and features, and has directed a few music videos. With the majority of her work being in the commercial space, she enjoys breaking out into new genres and styles whenever she gets the chance.
Having been the only woman in the room, or the only woman on set for the majority of her career - Kim is committed to encouraging and supporting underrepresented identities in film. Kim has noticed a significant difference in the atmosphere on set, as well as the overall outcome of a project when diversity is prioritized both in front of and behind the camera.
Outside of filmmaking, Kim enjoys roller skating, dancing, and volunteering with high school students. Kim is happily settled in Denver, and wants to help our local community of filmmakers thrive - and stop seeing her friends move out of state for better opportunities.
Reach out if you share the same values and think you want to be part of the collective.
OUR VALUES