Erica Tanamachi
Directing
Biography
Erica Jane Tanamachi (née Filanc) is an award-winning filmmaker and MFA Cinema graduate of San Francisco State University. She has worked with Phoebe Rubin for over 15 years making various documentaries for non-profit organizations throughout the Bay Area. Tanamachi recently produced the award winning feature documentary MOTHERLOAD. She also won Best Documentary from the Sonoma Film Festival, Silverlake Film Festival and The Documentary Foundation for her first short documentary LIVING POETS. As of 2026, Tanamachi continues to direct and produce documentaries and short subjects, and teaches an Aesthetics and Practice of Editing and Directing for Motion Picture Media at College of Marin in Kentfield.
Known For
Filmed over three years, the film follows Ashley Chea, a Cambodian-American basketball phenom. Exploring the highs and lowsher immigrant family, surmounting racial and class differences, as well as personal trials that include a devastating knee injury. Despite the intensity of basketball recruiting, Ashley’s humor shines through and her natural talent inspires the support of those around her.
Home Court
"Work While You Have the Light" is a feature documentary by a multi-generational directing team that examines professional women who are over seventy years old and still working.
Work While You Have the Light
For more than 40 years, on an old back street in San Francisco’s North Beach neighborhood, Jacqueline Margulis’ culinary obsession has made her little French restaurant the only one in the U.S. focused entirely (and exquisitely) on soufflés.
A Perfect Note: Café Jacqueline and The Art of the Soufflé
After miscarrying her baby in prison due to shackling, Pamela Winn becomes an activist, leading thousands to support the Dignity Bill. "Winn" exposes the horrifying experience that incarcerated pregnant women endure and documents Pamela's mission to end shackling and ultimately prison birth.
Winn
Documentary about a new mom's quest to understand and promote the cargo bike movement in a gas-powered, digital and divided world.