ABOUT US

We tell stories to inspire

Mission & Values

We are a small award-winning documentary team that believes in the power of sharing personal and untold stories about scientists and the communities they serve. We are dedicated to producing cinematic, character-driven short and long-form documentaries that bring us closer together and closer to science.

Landmark Stories is a program of the Arizona Experiment Station's Communications and Cyber Technology lab. Our place within the national Experiment Station system, a federally supported effort to facilitate and disseminate scientific innovation, helps us bring science and its impact on communities to broader audiences.

On Assignment

Our Team

Sandra Westdahl

Team Leader
Senior Producer
Editor
Cinematographer

Sandra Westdahl

Team Leader
Senior Producer
Editor
Cinematographer

Sandra Westdahl is a National Edward R. Murrow award-winning documentary filmmaker with a driving passion for social issues and bringing intimate stories to the screen. In her current role as the Team Leader and Senior Producer at Landmark Stories, she wants to tell stories that build relationships and bring attention to communities that are impacted by environmental and social injustices.

Before embarking on a career as a visual storyteller, Sandra worked as a print journalist in her home country of Sweden.

She completed her bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism at the University of Arizona and worked as a video producer fellow with The New York Times Journalism Institute. She spent more than five years working for PBS 6 producing, filming, and editing documentary shorts with a focus on social justice and equality.

Since making the transition to film, Sandra has received 13 Rocky Mountain Emmy® Awards, three Telly Awards as well as four regional and one national Edward R. Murrow Awards for her work. Her work has been featured nationally on PBS NewsHour Weekend and NPR Tiny Desk Contest.

Mitch Riley

Senior Producer / Director

Mitch Riley

Senior Producer / Director

Mitch Riley has worked as a short documentary filmmaker in southern Arizona for more than a decade. His extensive body of work is character-driven, cinematic, and focused on the human condition. He believes the storyteller’s journey is one of building authentic collaborative relationships that uplift and honor people and speak to the greater good. Mitch joined the Landmark Stories team after serving as the Senior Series Producer for the award-winning show Arizona Illustrated, a program of Arizona Public Media, the PBS affiliate at the University of Arizona. He has earned 30 regional Emmy Awards from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences for work as a producer, director, editor, and cinematographer. He also received an Edward R. Murrow Award for his short documentary, Wildlife and the Bighorn. His work has been featured on PBS NewsHour and PBS NewsHour Weekend. Mitch began his career as a photojournalist and then decided to pursue a film education. He earned his MFA in Film from the Graduate Film Program at Tisch School of the Arts, NYU. His cinematic influences include Terence Malick, Emmanuel “Chivo” Lubezski, Kathryn Bigelow, and Alejandro G. Iñárritu.

Gisela Telis

Senior Producer

Gisela Telis

Senior Producer

Gisela Telis is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker dedicated to telling stories at the intersection of science and social justice. Over more than 15 years, her reporting has taken her from embattled rivers to the frontlines of the opioid epidemic, with a focus on amplifying the voices of those who are most often silenced.

As the daughter of immigrants and a descendant of displaced and genocided peoples, Gisela grew up with a deep reverence for stories and the radical resistance they can represent. After a misguided early stint in astrophysics, she returned to that storytelling tradition through journalism, and went on to cover science and health for national publications like the Washington Post, Science Magazine, and High Country News.

Her transition to film began in 2010, when she joined Arizona Public Media, the PBS affiliate for southern Arizona. There she founded and led the only dedicated mental health reporting desk at any public broadcasting station in the U.S.

In that role, she worked with amazing colleagues — including Landmark’s Sandra Westdahl and Mitch Riley — to craft compelling, character-driven documentaries that centered the experiences of people living with mental health challenges. These stories made a tangible impact, helping community members secure needed support and serving as educational tools in classrooms across the country, and were recognized with numerous Rocky Mountain Emmy® Awards and an Edward R. Murrow Award.

Gisela is also the deeply grateful recipient of a Rosalynn Carter Mental Health Journalism Fellowship, a National Health Journalism Fellowship, and an honorable mention from the National Press Foundation’s Carolyn C. Mattingly Award for Mental Health Reporting. She is proud to be part of the Landmark team.

Angel Marquez

Sound Recordist/Designer
Drone Cinematographer

Angel Marquez

Sound Recordist/Designer
Drone Cinematographer

Angel Marquez has always had a love for film. His parents exposed him to all the blockbusters from the 80s and 90s as well as the films of their youth starring Pedro Infante, Santo, and Jorge Negrete. His passion for filmmaking led him to a greater appreciation for the role sound plays in the audience experience. Angel believes high-quality sound is essential to telling impactful stories and takes great pride in his profession of bringing unique voices to life. He is driven to tell the stories of people who are fighting for responsible land stewardship, clean water, and social justice.

Growing up in Tucson, Arizona, he frequently visited his parent’s home in Sonora, Mexico. During that time, Angel began to explore ways of understanding his own story of living between two worlds. He heard the stories of his family and the struggles they endured; his paternal grandfather breaking both of his legs traveling on foot from Sinaloa to work in California and his maternal grandfather swimming across the Rio Grande with his clothes in a shopping bag to find work in Corpus Christi, Texas.

In college, Angel continued to explore his Mexican-American roots as well as his love for storytelling. As an undergraduate, he worked at Landmark Stories helping with all aspects of the filmmaking process. In 2020, he graduated from the University of Arizona with a degree in History and Mexican American studies, an experience that refined his skills as a researcher and storyteller. Before joining Landmark Stories, he worked as a freelance sound recordist and projectionist at the Loft, a non-profit art house cinema in Tucson. His sound recording skills have been showcased in several non-fiction and fiction film projects including the acclaimed short film Tesoro, by director Roxanna Denise Ibarra.

When Angel is not strapped to a sound mixer and wearing headphones, he enjoys riding the streets of Tucson on his bike, cooking elaborate meals with mixed results, and relaxing with his highly opinionated cat, Momo.

Dave Bogner

Supervisor

Dave Bogner

Supervisor

Dave Bogner keeps Landmark Stories running smoothly by applying his many years of communications technology in his role of Production Manager.

In his perfect world, Dave would be whitewater rafting class 5 rapids, surfing, skiing and mountain biking. But he also enjoys his day job of overseeing video production and educational technologies for the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and remote education technologies for the College of Optical Sciences at the University of Arizona.

Starting in his teens as a camera operator for local TV sports and studio productions, Dave worked for Capitol Records touring rock and roll bands. After college, he worked his way up to the Director of Engineering at the Virginia Tech Instructional TV studio and grew the studio to a statewide organization with multiple studios, satellite facilities, classrooms and networking operations. He also taught courses for the Faculty Development Institute, founded a state of the art digital media lab for the University, and contributed to the development of a high speed digital network in the state of Virginia with real-time video communications.

ABOUT US

We tell stories to inspire

Mission & Values

On Assignment

Our Team

Sandra Westdahl

Team LeaderSenior ProducerEditorCinematographer

Mitch Riley

Senior Producer / Director

Gisela Telis

Senior Producer

Angel Marquez

Sound Recordist/DesignerDrone Cinematographer

Dave Bogner

Supervisor

Matt Rahr

Supervisor

Team Leader
Senior Producer
Editor
Cinematographer

Sound Recordist/Designer
Drone Cinematographer