After working in commercial video and filmmaking, Naomi came to New York to work with Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV), one of the oldest community television centers in the U.S. Starting as an intern in 2005 she worked there until 2008, when she went on to co-establish a non-profit organization called Cineminga International. Its mission is to help indigenous populations make films to preserve their language and culture.
During the next six years, she brought equipment to Colombia, Ecuador, and Nepal and devoted her time and effort to teach local people to make their own videos, leaving them with the equipment to continue this work.
The videos she helped make in Colombia have been translated from the indigenous language into Spanish, English, French, German, and Japanese and accepted into international film festivals that include imagineNATIVE (2010, Canada), Yebisu International Festival for Art and Alternative Visions (2011, Japan), Native American Film + Video Festival (2011, New York), and , Nepal International Indigenous Film Festival (2012, Nepal).
During 2008 to 2014, Naomi also made a couple of visits to the communities of the Ainu people in Japan, where she learned about the seriousness of the situation with their disappearing language, which UNESCO has recognized as critically endangered.
She left a leadership role at Cineminga in 2014 but continues to work with the Ainu people in Japan and is interested in working with other communities around the globe that would like training and assistance in making documentaries about their culture and/or social issues.
Blog of Cineminga production (2008-2014) *Mostly in Japanese