Ad Age is marking Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2023 with our Honoring Creative Excellence package. (Read the introduction here.) This week, our guest editor is JJ Augustavo, the award-winning filmmaker, commercial director and music video director. Here, Augustavo writes about a March for Our Lives project that embodied “the power filmmaking has to make revolutionary, meaningful change.”
Activism and philanthropy have always been a source of meaning not only in my career but in my life. Working in these realms has instilled in me a sense of gratitude—recognizing that while it hasn’t been easy for me in this profession where no one doing my job looks like me (many still assume I’m a PA), I’ve been afforded certain privileges.