Director & Cinematographer — Central California & Washington

Nando is a Chicano writer director and cinematographer based in Moses Lake, Washington. Raised in California's Central Valley, he studied filmmaking at Fresno City College before returning to Washington, where he creates documentary and narrative work centered on Latino communities. His films blend documentary realism with cinematic storytelling, exploring identity, empathy, and emotional inheritance through a culturally rooted lens.

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FILMS

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2016 · Spanish/ English SUB ·
Dir. Nando Galarza CarterA young field worker, full of doubts, has to find his own voice in order to believe in himself and take the first step towards his future.

2017 · 6 min · English

2019 · 8 min · English

2020 · 5 min · English Short Dir. Nando Carter

Feature Film In Progress

2027 · Spanish/ English ·
When a lifelong gang member finally finds something
worth living for. He is forced to ask the question'. Was this fate, or is it la mala vida. as the streets prepare to answer for him.

2014 · English/Spanish

The film follows NUASTRA, a Mexican-American man in his mid-thirties who has spent his adult life embedded in gang culture. Told through a non-linear structure combining present-day scenes with extended flashbacks, the story traces the events that shaped Nuastra's life — beginning at age fifteen when he leaves a neighborhood soccer game to join a local gang led by a figure known as Shot Collar, through the murder of his closest friend Sleeps, his father Ernesto's death, his relationship with Elena who becomes the mother of his daughter, and his eventual death in a drive-by shooting orchestrated by two rival gang members known as the Demitri twins, whom he first encountered at age fifteen.

Short Film In Progress
(Click To Support This Short Film)

2028 · Spanish/ English ·
A twelve year old survives the night of an alien invasion, as the break of dawn reveals the truth.

2014 · English/Spanish

Set over the course of one night in the late 2000s, La Madrugada follows Ximena, a young girl who sees the world through science-fiction fantasies. When mysterious lights descend on her neighborhood, she believes aliens have arrived only to slowly realize they are human immigration agents tearing families apart. As her parents are taken, Ximena’s belief in extraterrestrials. The story ends with the loss of innocence but the survival of hope.

The Filmmaker

Filmmaking is a long game.

Based in Moses Lake, working across the Yakima and Wenatchee valleys. I make films that sit between documentary and narrative — rooted in community, memory, and the quiet weight of identity. My work lives at the intersection of restraint and emotional honesty. This is that practice, made public.

|5 Short Films
|12+ Festival Screens
|3 Best Film Awards

|1 Feature in DEV
|1 Short Film in DEV
|∞ Stories to tell
|CWA Home Base