Biography
Jill Damatac (she/her) is a formerly undocumented writer and filmmaker and the author of Dirty Kitchen, a food memoir about growing up undocumented. Born in Manila, Philippines, in the final years of the Marcos dictatorship, Damatac immigrated to the United States as a child.
Through her writing and film work, she explores themes of immigration, diaspora, and how colonial occupation and the carceral state are one and the same. Her film work has been featured in the DOC NYC and Cannes film festivals and won Best Documentary at Ireland’s Kerry Film Festival. Damatac holds an MSt in creative writing from Cambridge University and an MA in documentary film from the University of the Arts, London. She is a lecturer in creative nonfiction at Cambridge University and serves as a mentor for graduate students at Harvard University.
