Check out this new 'Kiss My Mike' podcast episode featuring ACHIM MENDOZA.

Achim is queer ex-Filipino-soap-opera-translator-turned-filmmaker, Achim’s passion for film started in his teens, when Marilou Diaz-Abaya, a renown Filipino director and National Artist, offered to mentor him. As a teenager, Achim would fly back and forth between his hometown of Davao and Manila to attend her classes. Back in the Philippines, he helped create “Stages Sessions,” a YouTube channel that focuses on indie Filipino musicians and poets. His 2021 musical short “Connection” was screened at the 38th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival and was nominated for Best Short at the 2023 FilAm Creative Film Festival.

His next short “A Karaoke Space Odyssey” is a sci-fi rom-com karaoke musical that recently had its world premiere at the LA Shorts International Film Fest. He is also the editor of “ALOK,” a short documentary on queer and gender- nonconforming artist Alok Vaid-Menon, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2024.

Achim’s works focus on the radical power of joy to change the world, especially the joy experienced by his fellow Filipinos and queer persons of color. In his spare time, Achim likes to perfect his family’s longsilog recipe.

Only on Kiss My Mike!