Recent Director’s Grant recipient, Kim Watson’s documentary, TRESPASS, received the PAFF Founders Award for best documentary feature. Congratulations, Kim!
Making its West Coast Premiere at the Pan African Film Festival, Watson’s film brings intimate, art-driven storytelling revealing the lives of Los Angeles’ unhoused with dignity, beauty and understanding.
Based on his award-winning book, TRESPASS: Portraits of Unhoused Life, Love and Understanding, TRESPASS, the documentary, brings viewers face-to-face with the unhoused of Los Angeles, revealing lives shaped by loss, resilience, and survival. Through deeply personal encounters and unguarded storytelling, filmmaker Kim Watson captures the humanity often unseen by the public’s passing gaze. The film challenges audiences to move beyond stereotypes, reframing homelessness not as a condition, but as a shared human reality that demands empathy, dignity, and collective action.
Kim Watson is an award-winning filmmaker, artist, and author whose work centers on social justice and human dignity. Over the past five years, Watson has been deeply embedded within Los Angeles’ unhoused communities—photographing, filming, writing, and building long-term relationships grounded in trust and respect.
This sustained commitment has resulted in powerful public exhibitions, thousands of meals distributed directly to unhoused individuals, national recognition, and the publication of TRESPASS: Portraits of Unhoused Life, Love, and Understanding (Broadleaf Books, 2024). The documentary TRESPASS is the next evolution of this work—bringing lived experience, art, and advocacy to the screen for a wider public.
Learn more about TRESPASS and Kim Watson’s work
Visit Kim’s website, www.kimwatsonart.net