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Alan O’Hashi lives in the Silver Sage Village cohousing community in Boulder Colorado. He is an author and documentary movie producer and works through Boulder Community Media (BCM), a nonprofit production company. He works with community-based media producers, organizations, and socially-responsible businesses to develop their content in a culturally competent manner. His work seeks to capture the nuance and complexity of self-identity and expands the wider community’s understanding of our pluralistic world.

Alan creates films and writes books that are not only important and meaningful but also entertaining and inspiring.

Through his books and movies, Alan wants audiences to experience the world from multiple angles, challenge their assumptions through stories and gain a deeper understanding of individual self-identities and those different than our own.

His writing and movie-making explore the complexities of identity through his personal experiences with other people. Alan’s works are powerful explorations of the intersections of race, ethnicity, culture, nationality, and gender and how these facets of identity shape our lives. He complicates the notion of what it means to be a non-white person living in the modern world and challenges the assumptions of others by sharing his experiences and perspectives.

By telling his stories on silver screens and the written page, Alan invites readers and viewers to reflect on their lives and grapple with the complexities of self-identity, not only in the present but also in the past. “My hope is to create a more equitable and just society in which people from all backgrounds can be seen and heard.”

After being laid off from two jobs following 9/11, Alan grew tired of working for marginally competent bosses and qualified for unemployment twice. “My friends told me to take a risk and try something I’ve always wanted to do, but I didn’t because I was always stuck in a job.”

Alan enrolled in some video production and screenwriting classes at the local public access TV station. Backstopped by unemployment and student loans, he jumped off the entrepreneurial cliff and is the BCM Executive Producer.

“Self-employment isn’t without its challenges. Every morning I wake up unemployed and constantly developing the next project.”