In May 2014, Nicolás and Emi met at a participatory audiovisual workshop in Lobitos, Peru. With over 10 years of documentary filmmaking experience from the Andes to Amazon, Nico founded the Lobitos Cinema Project (LCP) as a grassroots visual storytelling initiative in the military, surfing, and oil rich fishing village of Lobitos, along the Northern Coast of Peru. Nico partnered with local NGO, WAVES Peru to faciliate an audiovisual workshop for creative educators, artists, and filmmakers. 

 

After co-producing a documentary film inspired by her nonprofit, Beyond the Surface International, with local youth and community partners in India, Emi realized the positive transformational power of storytelling as a dynamic tool for positive social change. Emi was invited to  LCP's international workshop where Nico introduced participatory visual storytelling: local people are the storytellers and filmmakers are simply helping to facilitate their process with encouragement and technical support.

 

Nico and Emi decided to join forces and create their own project celebrating coastal culture in this way. As they began, they discovered every story related to the ocean’s collapse. Coast 2 Coast became a platform for coastal communities, from fishing villages to seaside metropoles, to unite as ocean guardians through the audiovisual, creative arts and power of play.