Breaktide Productions

Breaktide Productions is an all women-of-color-owned film production company co-owned and operated by Alex J. Bledsoe and Jalena Keane-Lee. Our mission is to support and generate grassroots movements, ignite collective action, and promote BIPOC self-determination. Breaktide is rooted in intersectional solidarity. As founders with varied lived experience from distinct cultural contexts, we recognize that our struggles are intertwined. Our films highlight interconnected global struggles, including environmental racism, human rights and Indigenous sovereignty. Since Breaktide’s founding in 2018, we have grown rapidly, and established a reputation as an award-winning, full-service film production company with ethics and equity at our core. Our work is known for its high production quality, and centering of Global Majority people behind the scenes and in front of the camera. Breaktide has earned awards and recognition from Sundance, SXSW, ITVS, Cannes Lions, Allied Media, and PBS, and was named to the YBCA 100 list of social changemakers in 2019. 

We are now launching our first fundraising campaign! Your tax-deductible donation will be used to support our documentaries. Funds will be used to compensate our teams and fund key production expenses needed to complete our films. Learn more about our slate of feature documentary films below: Standing Above The Clouds (seeking distribution) – Directed by Jalena Keane-Lee When the world’s largest telescope is set to be built on the sacred mountain, Mauna Kea, three Native Hawaiian families dedicate their lives to defending it. OAKLEAD (entering post-production) – Directed by Alex J. Bledsoe In Oakland, California, we fight to protect one another from lead poisoning in our own homes and schools — and confront over a century of environmental racism. 

ABOUT THE TEAM

Jalena Keane-Lee (she/her) is a filmmaker who explores intergenerational trauma and healing through an intersectional lens. She was named one of DOC NYC’s 2024 40 Under 40 Filmmakers to Watch, a 2023 Adobe x Sundance Woman to Watch, and co-founded Breaktide, an all-women-of-color video production company. Jalena is the winner of Tribeca Through Her Lens 2020 and DocPitch 2022. Her films have streamed on POV and Criterion Collection, played at over 50 film festivals, and won best short at LA Asian Film Festival in 2020 and the Jury Award at Sundance in 2023. Jalena’s directing style is guided by a politic that is rooted in the liberation of all people, and radical hope that a better world is not only possible but up to all of us to create. Jalena’s first feature-length documentary STANDING ABOVE THE CLOUDS premiered at HotDocs in 2024 where it won Best Social Impact Documentary.

Alex J. Bledsoe is a director, producer and multidisciplinary artist whose work uplifts everyday rehearsals of collective liberation and healing justice. Her debut feature documentary, OAKLEAD, follows Oakland community members as they fight to protect one another from lead poisoning in their own homes and schools – and uncover over a century of environmental racism. Alex produced the narrative feature, Residue, about gentrification in Washington, D.C., which streamed on Netflix after premiering internationally at Venice International Film Festival. Alex’s nomadic installation, Reroot, Reroute, explores Black diasporic homemaking in the wake and ongoing violence of racial capitalism and displacement, and opened at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2022. Previously, Alex led communications and video production for Healing Justice Ldn. Alex has been a guest columnist for The Washington Post, a 2023 California Arts Council Individual Artist Fellow, a Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Fellow, YBCA 100 honoree, and a Maynard 200 honoree. Alex earned her B.S. from Georgetown University in international politics, where she studied Portuguese, Spanish and Arabic.