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lthough the news in Nebraska has been known to speak of a statewide “brain-drain,” Omaha is a city where more than onethird of the residents have at least a bachelor’s degree. In fact, the city has gained some valuable college-educated assets over the years. Film Streams’ artistic director Diana Martinez is one of those assets.

While she couldn’t change the curriculum, the desire to tell the stories of people of color in the fi lm industry prompted her to create her own podcast, Hollywood in Color. “I’m a researcher at heart,” she said. “I spent forever researching loudness standards. Like, you don’t need to know that,” she added with a laugh. Before moving to the Midwest, the now 35-year-old did her own brand of research. “Th is is probably the wrong way to go about it, but I think it actually gave me a very positive depiction of Omaha—I did my Instagram research.” She looked at local infl uencer, bar, and restaurant accounts. “And I was like, OK. Th ere’s a cool, thriving scene of young people who have Instagram content.” When she came to visit, she said it was similar to the area she grew up in, known as the Inland Empire. Since moving to Omaha more than fi ve years ago, Martinez’s support for the city has only grown, and she has become one of its biggest champions. “I don’t know why people leave,” she said. “I get that there’s things in terms of politics, weather, and those things that do make it diffi cult to live here. But, especially for creative people, this is a place where you can make a diff erence so fast, because it’s so much smaller than New York or LA. You need fewer resources to get a project off the ground.” Martinez’s work at Film Streams has infl uenced her feelings toward Omaha as well. She said the philanthropic community is supported in a way that it’s not in other places, even major cities, in the U.S. That proved especially helpful when she first arrived in 2020. “I was concerned about our staff , but I was privileged enough to be like, I’m not worried we won’t come back, because of all the resources that we were able to basically put away before the pandemic happened,” she said.

Martinez found out she was the new artistic director in mid-March, one day before Film Streams shuttered their doors to in-person audiences. Within a week of closing, they were doing virtual cinema, off ering fi lms to patrons to rent online. It was a strange time to take on a new leadership role. “Being artistic director, I envisioned programming our screens...Th en it became launching a virtual platform and learning how to do streaming, basically, in a few months,” she said. “Th at wasn’t at all what I anticipated, but…I don’t think I’ve ever, in my career, felt more accomplished than during that time.” Martinez’s current role involves overseeing all of Film Streams’ programming. “Th at includes our education programming, which Diana still oversees, but also the new releases and classic fi lms we show at the Dundee Th eater and Ruth Sokolof Th eater,” Kinney said. “Additionally, she oversees our community engagement screenings—which may look like a fi lm followed by a panel discussion—and our events with visiting fi lmmakers and artists.” It’s clear Martinez believes in the power of fi lm, but she knows it has its limits. While she thinks fi lm can change peoples’ perceptions, she is also realistic. “A fi lm, I believe, She was initially hired as the education isn’t going to provide aff ordable housing director after a lengthy, nationwide search. for people,” she said. “It’s a representation Film Streams’ marketing director Patrick of issues and ideas, and even the best docuKinney said, “She was interested in the mentary still needs to spur people to action entire breadth of fi lm–lowbrow, highbrow, in order to change things. Ultimately, people art house, blockbusters, all of it–and how change things.” She laughingly admits that that work refl ected important truths about might be controversial for her to say, given our culture. It was clear that she was the fi lm what she does. But she expert we’d been looking for.” believes art is powerful in Martinez’s fi lm roots started early. She recalled her Salvadoran parents watching a “This is a place where the realm in which it exists. “I wish we talked about that diverse range of movies to help them with their English, and they would let her watch whatever movies she wanted. She said they you can make a differmore, because it does a disservice to art to make it want to be always about social never set limits on what she could do in life, either. ence so fast, because it’s justice, or always working to do something,” she said. “Sometimes art is just beauAfter earning her bachelor’s degree in English from Caltech-San Bernadino, Martinez earned a Ph.D. in fi lm and media studso much smaller than tiful. Th at, in and of itself, is a really powerful experience. Let art be for arts’ ies from the University of Oregon. Once she started teaching—at the University of Oregon—she quickly realized the role she New York or LA. You sake sometimes.” Visit fi lmstreams.org for more played in some students’ lives. “I had students tell me they took my class because of my last name, because they just wanted need fewer resources information. one other Latino to bond with in this really homogenous place,” she said. “Th en I had to look at what I was teaching. Clearly there to get a project off was an expectation of what it would mean to have a professor of color.” the ground.” Growing up in Southern California, -Diana Martinez said she was fortunate to be surrounded by diversity. It wasn’t until she Martinez started moving in circles that were less heterogeneous that she started to recognize how important that was.