On December 6, 2025, we world premiered “The Rebel Reef: Seeds of Hope” at the Hidden Compass Ethos of Exploration event.  It left me a puddle of tears and emotions.

As the opening scenes played, I noticed that Director Brynne Rardin and I both weren’t looking at the screen: our eyes were fixed on Christian, our main character, and his family. They had flown up from Honduras to be with us in Oakland, and this was their first time watching our movie, about the hardest moment of their lives. We both wanted to make them proud.

The actual film is just under 25 minutes, and I felt like I was holding my breath the entire time. With every scene that played, my mind flashed back to our two challenging weeks of filming in Honduras: the weird fixtures we had to MacGuyver to capture the right light, what insane shenanigans we had to undertake to get the shot, translating traumas through tears and multiple languages, and all the millions of impossible obstacles we had to overcome to keep going.

It ALL hit me, right then, and I was flooded with all the feelings: gratitude, overwhelm, joy, relief, reverence. I realized, I’m in love with what we made.

I will readily admit that making “The Rebel Reef” has been the single most challenging creative endeavor I’ve ever undertaken. Film producing is foreign to me, and I’ve had to “figure out how to build the plane while flying.” Whewww it’s hard work!

It required me to simultaneously use all of my skill sets — from project management to translating Spanish to scuba diving to storytelling — at levels I’ve never before attempted. In all honesty, the effort broke me a little …. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, but there was no choice but to keep going and to try to honor this very important story with the best we could offer.

But, when I saw “Produced by Tiffany Duong” flash on the big screen, having so many people from all walks of my life in the room with me for this premiere, and witnessing how profoundly touched Christian and his family were to see their story represented made every insane and wild bit of this journey worth it. I realized then that the journey has built me up stronger and more resilient than I knew was possible.

Above all, I feel immensely lucky and blessed that I have a life where I can use my hard work, my skills, and my talents to create beautiful things and to amplify the work of people I respect and care about.