Virtual Meet the Artist: Gabriel Francis Paz Goodenough & Erricka Bridgeford (The Body Politic)

Erricka is a peace activist from Baltimore City and a close friend of Brandon Scott. She is the co-founder of Baltimore Ceasefire 365 (now called: The Baltimore Peace Movement), which co-organizes quarterly peace weekends in the city. The movement began in 2017 and rallies Baltimoreans to avoid violence and creates opportunities for people to “notice, uplift, nurture, share, and bask in the peace that already exists within them.” Erricka also trains mediators and teaches conflict resolution skills. Erricka’s life was first impacted by murder when she was 12 years old, and she has been working for over twenty years to “ensure that murder does not have the last say.” Erricka’s ability to grow and nurture peace is fueled by her commitment to transform her personal pain into “hope in action.”

Gabriel is a proud third-generation resident of Baltimore, Maryland. He began his career as a production assistant on the TV series HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREETS, later becoming a camera assistant on projects such as A BEAUTIFUL MIND, THE SOPRANOS, and OZ. He served as a camera operator on the Steven Soderbergh-produced and George Clooney-directed HBO series UNSCRIPTED and has been a cinematographer on documentaries for PBS, Netflix, and HBO. In 2017, he co-produced the Mexican/United States co-production of the feature documentary AGAVE: THE SPIRIT OF A NATION (SXSW, 2018). From 2018-19, he worked in the Philippines photographing and co-producing Ramona Diaz’s Emmy and Peabody Award-winning documentary A THOUSAND CUTS (Sundance, 2020) about Nobel Peace Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa. After returning from the Philippines, Gabriel was diagnosed with a rare form of bone cancer. Treatment for the disease has left him disabled and without full mobility in his right leg. Physically unable to return to his previous career as a full-time vérité cameraperson, he has kept his passion for documentaries alive by shifting his focus to directing this film about his beloved hometown. THE BODY POLITIC represents his first time as a feature documentary director. Gabriel is a magna cum laude graduate of the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts and a 2018 Katherine Davis Fellow For Peace. He speaks Spanish and has worked on several projects in Latin America.