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Founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

A non-profit university with on-campus and online degree programs

Home of Consciousness-Based Education

Accreditation: Higher Learning Commission

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Founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

A non-profit university with on-campus and online degree programs

Home of Consciousness-Based Education

Accreditation: Higher Learning Commission

Request Info > Apply > Visit Us >
Request Info > Apply > Visit Us >

Laura Bustillos is a documentary filmmaker/visual journalist from the US-Mexico border of Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua and El Paso, Texas. She was born less than 10 miles away from US territory, lived her early childhood years in Mexico, and moved to the US with her family when she was 12 years old.

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Laura Bustillos

Laura grew up in a cultural limbo of nationality and identity, that now highly influences her work. She received a BA with a special recognition in Visual Journalism from Brooks Institute in Ventura, CA. During her time in California, she became aware of the hard work that immigrants are often put through and decided that her work needed to communicate this circumstance.

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On Laura’s set

Upon graduation, Laura traveled for half a year to Southern Mexico with the media collective Republic of Light as they documented alternative healing, shamans, and indigenous cultures. She then moved to El Paso, Texas for two years where she worked with local art magazines, musicians, and documented the construction of a baseball stadium in the downtown area of the city.

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Laura filming

In desperate need of transformation of the border culture she was a part of, Laura came across the David Lynch MA in Film at MIU and immediately knew that it was for her. In August of 2014, she moved to Fairfield where she learned Transcendental Meditation. Almost instantaneously, immigration issues in her life began to solve themselves, and idea breakthroughs came to her in meditation.

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Laura doing photography

Laura is now working on a documentary series called “Undocumented Freedom” which humanizes the “concept” of what it’s like to be an undocumented immigrant in the US. She traveled to Phoenix, Arizona and documented the life of “Beto” – a young man who was brought to the U.S. Illegally as a child, was deported at the age of 21, and then ran back across the desert to be reunited with his family in the US. She is currently in the post-production stage of her documentary.

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 Check out the website for the project where you can also watch “Border Mass” – a short doc about a Catholic mass that happens right on the border fence of the US and Mexico on day of the dead every year. For many, this is the only time of the year when they get to see their family members on the other side.

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