Alexandra Lenore Ashworth aka Dzana/xana is a U.S.-born Filipinx, Jewish filmmaker and writer. Their work explores collective memory, trauma, and healing in the face of colonization and globalization. Dzana’s MFA focuses primarily on kinship, adoption, and family separation, and on community care practices in the filmmaking process.

Dzana previously worked at HuffPost and RAVA Films, and is a 2022 Fulbright-National Geographic Storytelling Fellow. She has directed and produced for PBS, Art21, the MET, MOMA, and Brooklyn Museum. Their poetry appears in You Are Holding This, an abolitionist zine for and by adopted, fostered, and trafficked people. Dzana was Impact and Associate Producer for feature documentary Fire Through Dry Grass (2023) and Associate Producer for What The Pier Gave Us (in-production). Dzana is a NatGeo Explorer, and a proud member of Writers Guild of America (East), Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and the Asian American Documentary Network. She studied Spanish, screenwriting, and magical realism at Sarah Lawrence College. They also enjoy swimming, fishing, and scifi and fantasy fiction.
Learn more about Dzana at www.dzanaashworth.com