Filmmaker-Photographer Gabbi Cisneros Documents What Makes Us Human

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Image courtesy Gabbi Cisneros

Still from Gabbi Cisneros' 2024 film ‘Impermanence’

Still from Gabbi Cisneros' 2024 film ‘Impermanence’

There are endless layers of beauty and meaning to our everyday lives, and being a creative storyteller, Gabbi Cisneros is passionate about conveying the individual and collective experiences that embody human authenticity. As an experimental filmmaker, documentarian, videographer and photographer, she has made it her mission to make sense of the world around her using her treasured camera. “She thinks that every moment deserves to be captured,” reads Cisneros’ website.

“Everyone’s a stranger, but I could be anywhere and still find where I would fit in,” Gabbi Cisneros describes her creative philosophy. “I want to give people that same feeling looking at my photos or watching my films.”

Originally from Mishicot, Wisconsin, Cisneros first developed a creative instinct through drawing when she was little. “I remember some kids in kindergarten loved the way that I drew dragon wings, and that made me feel really good about myself,” she recalls. “I was very shy, so when people saw my drawings, I thought it was cool that they paid attention to something I made but not directly to me, which was nice (laughs).”

Rural Upbringing

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Photo by Caleb Peavy

Gabbi Cisneros

Gabbi Cisneros

Growing up in rural Wisconsin had a profound impact on Cisneros’ imagination. Upon falling in love with photography, she would run around her yard taking pictures, becoming fascinated with the ephemeralness of nature. As Cisneros got older, she began making photo and video projects, finding the stitching and editing aspects to be quite fun.

“I would film and take photos of stuff on family vacations, and then I would edit it in Windows Movie Maker into a documentary of our trip,” she continues. “It was very thematic, I would pick out specific songs that would make sense with where we were.”

Cisneros graduated from UW-Milwaukee in Film with a secondary concentration in Spanish, and from the school’s Honors College as honors with distinction, receiving several scholarships and awards along the way. Since 2019, Cisneros has worked as creative director at Porchlight Book Company, writing book reviews, producing author interviews, and creating and managing content on the organization’s social media and website. 

Finding Similarities

As a photographer and videographer, Cisneros embraces the notion that peoples’ stories and everyday lives are not much different from one another, explaining, “I grew up with not a lot of experiences outside my hometown and I had to find something interesting in the everyday, and I want people to be forced to do that even when there’s so much going on. It’s nice to not want to escape all the time, and I like the idea of seeing the things around you everyday in a different way.”

Her extensive freelance event coverage catalog encompasses concerts and live music, pop-ups, promotional work, book trailers and more. She has regularly worked with Awkward Nerd Events as well as Grace Weber’s Music Lab and A Mighty Blaze. “It’s so easy to get photos when you’re in a space where everyone’s having fun,” Cisneros affirms. “I’d love to do more music videos.”

Creative Nonfiction

In terms of her filmmaking, Cisneros gravitates toward a creative nonfiction approach, where she tells a subjective story while also weaving in a greater, big-picture narrative that emphasizes outsider elements. “It’s like finding a balance between a niche story and a more universal story,” she says.

Some of her cinematic trademarks include poetic words on the screen, close-up camera shots and intimate sound designs, while thematically she explores complex topics like the passage of time, memories, getting older and navigating relationships. She cites Cecelia Condit, whom she had as a professor, as an influence on her work. Early YouTube videos and 2000’s music videos had an impact on her as well.

Cisneros’ 2018 short documentary “Building, Shelter, Temple” celebrates libraries as sacred community spaces and resources, and it follows three individuals who share feelings of comfort and solace with their local library. “I’m always surprised when someone says they don’t have a library card,” she remarks. “There’s so few places with such genuinely knowledgeable, helpful and trustworthy people.”

Time and Finitude

In “Gaps” (2022), Cisneros explores the concepts of time and finitude relative to the human sense of control, incorporating motifs like tension in different parts of the body and doing chores as representations of stress and de-stress.

She elaborates, “During the pandemic, I had been reconsidering what it means to enjoy life and “using” time. Some of the words I used from Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks just blow my mind. The film has that “trapped” feeling that I felt during the pandemic, like we can’t do all the things we want to do anymore so how are we using our time or deciding who we are?”

Cisneros’ latest film, “Impermanence,” expands on her preoccupation with ephemerality, “searching for someone who’s no longer there.” As she thinks of her late mother, Cisneros peruses old family photographs and contemplates the unpredictable nature of grief. She shares, “When my mom died in 2018, I had just graduated college, and I wrote a lot, basically just documenting what was happening and how I was feeling, just to preserve the memories of her concretely. I read the book Motherless Daughter by Hope Edelman, and it was nice to hear how people have experienced loss and how they’ve dealt with it.

“I love photo albums and have so many photos. I’ve always been regretful, but when it’s regretting taking pictures of your dead mom, it’s pretty sad. I built ‘Impermanence’ around that concept, really showing how important it is to appreciate the people you have. Now that I’ve gone through what I’ve gone through, it makes so much sense to me to take as many pictures of people I love as I can, because those are the truly ephemeral things that you’ll want someday.”

Cisneros is currently in the process of submitting “Impermanence” to film festivals. View her video work at vimeo.com/gabbisees.

Also a writer, Cisneros has a Substack where she shares personal essays that reflect on life experiences and ponder existential questions. She co-runs the inclusive, member-led Milwaukee Millennial Book Club. Follow her on Instagram @gabbi.sees (or @gabbi.eats to follow her local dining experiences).