Born and raised in San Francisco, Geo is a newly hired festival associate at the Queens World Film Festival, now proudly based in Woodside, Queens. His journey to the film world has been anything but conventional. After a semester in college and following the events of 9/11, he decided to join the U.S. Army where he served as a combat medic from 2002 to 2006. When he returned to civilian life, he went back to school to pursue a degree in bio-engineering—a decision driven partly by his natural strengths in math and science, partly by a desire to make his parents proud, and maybe just a little by Jurassic Park. But his heart wasn’t in it, and eventually, he stepped away from academia and into the working world.

Geo found his stride in hospitality, where he spent over a decade bartending and managing bars, sharpening the kind of people skills and emotional intuition that now fuel his work in film. But the dream of storytelling never left him. His love of movies began early, sparked by The Empire Strikes Back, and he even took a few film classes before life pulled him in other directions. It wasn’t until the pandemic shuttered the bar he was managing that he made a bold move and left San Francisco to relocate to New York City to pursue a long-held dream of studying film and working in the film industry.

Geo is currently completing his Associate degree in Film and Television at LaGuardia Community College-expected graduation June 2025- and plans to transfer to a four-year university to continue his studies. With aspirations to become a writer/director and a growing affinity for editing, he is steadily developing his creative voice while contributing to student projects and deepening his involvement in the NYC film community.

At Queens World, Geo brings his lived experience, his passion for cinema, and his talent for making meaningful connections to the team. He thrives on the human element of film—how stories bring people together and challenge us to see the world through different eyes. His favorite genre is space operas, drawn to their epic scale, emotional depth, and the way they transport audiences to entirely new worlds. His work at Queens World is more than a new role—it’s a return to a calling that’s been waiting for the right moment.