Alberto Ferreras
Creative Director – Author – Filmmaker
HBO: HABLA
More than a decade before TikTok, Alberto Ferreras pioneered a format of short, personal testimonials that proved so successful it evolved into one of the longest-running documentary series in HBO’s history.
Through candid interviews with public figures and everyday people, Habla explores bilingualism, multiculturalism, assimilation, and belonging in the United States.
Featured voices include Lin-Manuel Miranda, Dolores Huerta, Justina Machado, Soledad O’Brien, Charo, José Andrés, Diane Guerrero, Lisa Garcia-Quiroz, Residente, Wilson Cruz, Carla Morrison, Rita Moreno, and Danny Trejo, among many others.
Launched in 2003, Habla pioneered a distinctive approach to Latino storytelling on television, placing personal testimony at its center.
Approach: Speaking directly to the camera with honesty, humor, and vulnerability, participants move naturally between English, Spanish, and Spanglish. A stripped-back visual style keeps the focus on each storyteller, while their experiences of identity, family, belonging, and ambition form a collective portrait of Latino life in the United States.
Reach: Produced for HBO from 2003 to 2022, Habla became a long-running, award-winning documentary series, bringing Latino perspectives to television audiences over nearly two decades. It also became an invaluable marketing tool for HBO, featured in countless events and brand activations that connected the network with Latino communities.
Team: Alberto Ferreras is the series creator, creative lead, executive producer, director and editor. Cinematography by Henry Adebonojo. Produced by Trina Bardusco, Lucinda Martinez, Jessica Vargas, Chrissie Hines and Elaine Brown.
GSK: What is Shingles?
¿Qué es Shingles? is a health awareness campaign produced by TelevisaUnivision’s Así Studios for GSK, with creative direction, directing, and editing by Alberto Ferreras.
Through three short documentaries, the campaign combines candid patient stories with medical expertise to help Hispanic audiences understand shingles and its impact on everyday life.
Challenge: Help Hispanic audiences recognize shingles as “culebrilla” or “herpes zóster”—an illness many knew through family members affected in their home countries. Through the voices of people who have experienced it, the campaign connects an unfamiliar English name to a familiar condition, making health information more accessible and personally relevant.
Approach: The campaign brings a documentary approach to health communication, grounding information in human experience and culturally relevant storytelling.
Reach: The campaign generated 7.7 million social video views—exceeding its target by 22%—and 13.2 million streaming impressions. Campaign research found Shingrix favorability was 37 percentage points higher among engaged audiences, with a 20-point lift in likelihood of recommending the vaccine. According to Comscore’s Campaign Performance Index, its social performance was 23 times stronger than comparable campaigns, demonstrating the power of culturally relevant, personal storytelling.
Team: Alberto Ferreras was the creative lead, director, and editor. Produced by Roberta J. Hurtado, with cinematography by Carlos García de Dios. Executive produced by TelevisaUnivision’s Así Studios and GSK.
American Latinos 1935-1945
Drawing on three years of research and a review of approximately 30,000 photographs from the Library of Congress, Alberto Ferreras created an immersive video installation with hundreds of historical portraits of Latino life in the United States.
Featuring photographs by Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Jack Delano, and others, the installation combines archival imagery, sound, and storytelling.
Presented at universities and cultural institutions in Spain, Portugal, and the United States, the exhibition attracted thousands of visitors, international media coverage, and scholarly attention.
Challenge: Bring an overlooked chapter of American history to life, transforming an extensive photographic archive into an immersive experience that makes the longstanding Latino presence visible and relevant to contemporary audiences.
Approach: Alberto Ferreras transformed extensive research into an immersive audiovisual installation combining archival photography, music, and narration. The experience places individual faces and stories at the center of a larger history, making a vast photographic archive accessible to contemporary audiences.
Reach: Presented at Instituto Cervantes in New York and Lisbon and at Casa de América in Madrid, the installation has attracted thousands of visitors and coverage from news organizations around the world, including El País from Spain, La Nación from Argentina, El Diario from New York, Time Out Madrid, alongside broadcasts on RTVE and PBS. The exhibition was also featured in Professor Lola Pons’s biweekly column for El País.
Team: Alberto Ferreras was in charge of concept development, research, curation, creative direction, post-production, and creation of social media assets. Narration by Olga Merediz. Sound design by Visionear. Technical consulting by Luzz Project, Mouna Creatives and Villa Communications.
“Alberto Ferreras has compiled more than 200 images, many never before published or rarely seen, documenting the visual history of American Latinos in this country from WPA photos held by the Library of Congress. Ferreras tells a powerful story.”
Brett Zongker, Chief of Media Relations, Library of Congress.
“Beautifully curated, written and narrated. A must see for those interested in American History.”
Caridad de la Luz, Executive Director, Nuyorican Poets Cafe.
“An immersive journey combining photography, music and narration.”
Time Out Madrid
“Alberto Ferreras rescues the Latino memory in the U.S.”
El Diario New York
Social Media Content
SMITHSONIAN: Somos
“Somos” is the first video installation commissioned by the National Museum of the American Latino. In its opening week it inspired 5 million dollars in donations for the institution.
“Somos” explores the diversity and complexity of the Latino identity in the United States, and it was on display for three years at the National Museum of American History in Washington DC.
“Somos” includes 150 portraits of US Latinos #shotoniphone.
Challenge: Introduce museum visitors—in 15 minutes—to the diversity of Latino life in the United States through personal stories that invite connection and challenge stereotypes.
Approach: Somos combines personal testimonies with archive images, and features 150 portraits of Latinos aken by the artist. The installation explores identity, family, and belonging, placing individual experiences at the heart of a larger American story.
Reach: Presented in the Molina Family Latino Gallery at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., from 2022 to 2025, Somos received widespread acclaim and prompted a donation of $5 million from Walmart and to the budding museum.
Team: Alberto Ferreras is the director, art director, writer, producer, editor and portrait photographer of this project. Cinematography by Alex Stikich. Post-production supervision by Mouna Creatives. Sound design by Visionear.
THE MOTH: Fearless
The Moth made international headlines with its first bilingual Mainstage event, held in October 2025 at the auditorium of El Museo del Barrio in Manhattan.
The sold-out show featured powerful and authentic stories by Diego Garrido, D Stroy, Rachel Strauss, Martha Ruiz-Perilla, and host Javier Morillo, with live latin jazz by Neil Ochoa y Los Consentidos de la Casa.
Challenge: Connect The Moth with Latino audiences in New York City while keeping its established English-speaking audience fully engaged, through a bilingual Mainstage event celebrating the courage to share personal stories.
Approach: Sin Miedo brought together storytellers from across the Latino diaspora. Subtitles made both languages accessible to the audience, while live music by Neil Ochoa y Los Consentidos de la Casa added authenticity to the experience. Ferreras helped identify additional stories and storytellers from the Latino communities the event aimed to engage
Reach Presented at El Museo del Barrio in New York in October 2025, Sin Miedo received coverage in El País from Spain, highlighting its significance in expanding the organization’s engagement with Spanish speaking communities.
Team: Alberto Ferreras co-directed The Moth’s bilingual Mainstage event with Jodi Powell. Production by Gabriel Szanjert, with Patricia Ureña and Christina Norman.
