Lights, Camera, Community: The Eccentric Artists Revolution

On a beautiful winter afternoon in Las Vegas, I sat down with the creators of Eccentric Artists, a women-led hybrid art collective and creative media company known for their award winning feature film Home: A Mother of 3,000 and their community-centered events.

NOSE GOES.

“Okay, so who wants to go first?” I ask.

Nadine and Tiffanie immediately put a finger up to their nose.

“Jem, you’re it.”

JEMSEN YUMICO BOLLOZOS

“Why meeeee?”

Jem sighs and resists at first, then begins sharing her story in full eloquence, in typical Jem like fashion.

Jemsen is a chaos junkie, I found out. Which is no surprise, honestly, because I can feel her energy bouncing off the walls as she tells me her story. She’s type-A and truly eccentric AF, and I love it.

As a child in the Philippines, she grew up dancing in a highly competitive atmosphere. Though she had to step away from that path, she found that, down to her cells, she is completely wired for the competitive, “chaotic” nature of the arts. She came “Stateside,” as Filipinos call it, when she was 17.

“I remember flying, coming here, and my mom told me to look out the window. And I see the lights of the Vegas Strip and I’m like, 'AMERICA! I’m rich now!'”

Jemsen was ecstatic to be here. And at 17, it was primetime to choose a path. She considered enrolling in the Graphic Design program at UNLV, but it didn’t feel quite right. She knew she wanted to combine the chaotic nature of competitive art, like dance, with her love for storytelling.

“I was watching this movie called Morning Glory, and Rachel McAdams is producing this broadcast. She’s pointing, things are happening, and I was like, That's what I wanna do! I want that kind of pressure back in my life! But then I ended up in filmmaking. I don’t know why. I think I like the idea of chaos, but also the artistic side of it.”

Jemsen's brain is constantly thinking about storytelling. That realization led her to filmmaking, where she could embrace both chaos and art. After graduating in 2019, she started working for Frequency Pictures while continuing to independently create her own films–with the help of friends.

TIFFANIE ROSE IGNACIO

“OK. So, full name is Tiffanie Rose Ignacio. I was born in 1995, born and raised in Las Vegas.”

Tiffanie starts speaking, and you immediately feel more grounded. I don’t actually know her Zodiac sign, but she gives such cool Earth energy: organized, meticulous, matter-of-fact. She has hers and everybody else’s shit in order.

Tiffanie has always been a filmmaker and someone who charts her own path. When her 5th-grade science class was instructed to put together a project, she proposed something different:

“I told my teacher, 'Can I make a video instead of doing a presentation?' So I did a video edit of me poking a straw through a potato. I used Windows Movie Maker back in the day, added all these effects, and my teacher was super impressed. My class was like, whoa, that’s a video.”

Her journey as a young prodigy continued as she made vlogs throughout middle school. In high school, she created short films, music videos, and comedy skits for her Japanese language class. When Tiffanie’s projects played in class, her teacher would make an enthusiastic announcement, and the whole class got popcorn. By the time college came around, it was a no-brainer for her to enroll in UNLV Film.

Now, Tiffanie is a film editor for a local media company thanks to a connection made through Danette Tull at the Nevada Women’s Film Festival.

She still gets hassled just for being awesome, though. (Fun fact: One time, Captain America himself came up and kissed her on the cheek while she was walking down the Strip). 

NADINE-GABRIELLE NATIVIDAD

Nadine was born in the Bay Area. East Bay, to be exact, if you couldn’t tell by her unique chic style. She’s the child of immigrant parents, like many of us, and bounced around a bit before moving to Las Vegas during elementary school.

“For whatever reason, a lot of Filipinos in the Bay Area were moving to Vegas. I think California was just, even back then, really expensive. We didn't move until 2000 or 2001.”

Before moving, Nadine’s exposure to Las Vegas was similar to most: glamorous movies featuring fast-living crime mobs and gambling galore.

“It was Honey, We Blew Up Our Kid, the one where the kid gets giant and walks from California to Las Vegas. And because my dad watched a lot of movies like Casino, all I knew existed were the lights, the Strip, and the desert. I didn’t think anything else existed.”

She didn’t end up living in a hotel, much to our dismay, but she did start finding her artistic path.

As a child, her first memory of writing and the arts was putting together a Winnie-the-Pooh picture book and showing it to her principal, who happened to be a huge Tigger fan. Theatre, music, and the arts became a way for little Nadine to ground herself during the turbulent changes in her life.

As she got older, she was pressured to pursue a money-making career, and the arts weren’t considered an option. She was placed in a STEM magnet school and attempted to suppress her artistic desires.

“Up until I was 16, I was like, I'm gonna be a pharmacist or some shit. I'm gonna make money and live in Summerlin and that's gonna be my life.”

Luckily for all of us, that didn’t stick. She graduated high school, rebelled, and became an English major at UNLV…until a friend encouraged her to get into film. Like an absolute rock star, she ended up double-majoring in English and UNLV Film’s Writing for Dramatic Media (and it was easy, she says).

Now, Nadine works in Los Angeles, living her Disney dreams, but she remains deeply connected to Las Vegas and Eccentric Artists.

ECCENTRIC ARTISTS: WOMEN-LED, ALL INVITED

One thing that struck me about Eccentric Artists’ stories was the recurring presence of a supportive woman—usually a friend or mentor—who encouraged them to pursue their passions, get connected, and level up. That same spirit is what brought them together to create Eccentric Artists.

The all-women-led aspect of the group just happened naturally.

“I think it’s also kind of like a symptom of the film industry,” Nadine explains. “Whether we realized it or not, we were more comfortable around each other because it’s naturally a male-dominated field. And because we worked so well together, we attracted like-minded people into our circle, and that just happened to be all women. That’s not something you get a lot in our industry, even now.”

Eccentric Artists started in 2020 while the team was working on a documentary, Crave, about the arts community in Las Vegas. At the time, the scene wasn’t exactly thriving, but Jem had an idea to change that:

“I told Tiffany I wanted to create a database, mostly for our friends at the time...We had a lot of talented friends who had never had exposure to their work.”

Tiffanie, our go-to girl, was like, “Easy. A website and a database. I got it.”

And from there, it grew. They needed a name, and with their shared love of experimental underground films—and a trusty thesaurus—Eccentric Artists was born.

They met with Nadine about the project. Nadine got on board and added another, “You know who’s smart as hell and should be part of this? VERONICA.” (Veronica Castillo De la Vega couldn’t join the interview, but trust me, she’s all brains and all beauty.) And thus, our Eccentric creators were united.

PUSHING THROUGH THE PANDEMIC

It was 2020. The pandemic was in full force, and everyone was out of work. It was tough. But it was also a super creative moment, and people needed connection more than ever. Tiffanie pushed Eccentric Artists to grow.

“Let’s see how we can be more interactive with people during this time,” she proposed.

They started hosting YouTube live streams featuring film showcases where people could tune in, chat, and engage. “We still have the history of all that stuff on our YouTube right now,” Tiffanie adds, laughing.

They did table reads, Q&As with featured artists, and even played artist matchmaker by pairing people with similar interests.

“The cool thing is, a lot of those people started collaborating because of the featured artist thing,” Tiffanie says. “And that was like, super cool for us to see. Because it's like, wow, they're working together now. And it just became a community that we felt really proud of making at that time.”

SHAMELESS PLUG & BEYOND

As the pandemic eased, the team’s doors—literally and figuratively—opened. Their first in-person event, Shameless Plug, took place in 2021: an arts festival with a film screening at Fergusons Downtown. It was something no one else was doing at the time, Nadine explains:

“The whole idea behind Shameless Plug was to reach beyond the film community and bring people into it. We realized how disconnected the art communities were... There was a craft scene, a live music scene, and a film scene, but no Venn diagram. Now, for us, there is one.”

The festival is still going strong and growing bigger each year. 

Their community events continued to expand, including community partnerships such as Theatre Camp: Movie & Craft Night, produced alongside LV Craft Circle. They’ve sponsored the Las Vegas 48 Hour Film Festival, hosted Open Mic Nights, put up Coffee Socials and Speed Networking events, held Empowering Women Workshops, and also produced the first Nevada Film Tax Bill Town Hall (—with me!) to get artists and filmmakers politically engaged.

Wherever Las Vegas film, artists, and community intersected, you found Eccentric Artists—vibing hard, working hard, and welcoming you with soft, open arms.

BIG MILESTONES

Since its inception in 2020, Eccentric Artists has achieved significant milestones (see: literally all of above). And on top of all that, they produced their first film, Home: A Mother of 3,000, which won Best Nevada Film at the 2024 Nevada Women’s Film Festival. They also became an LLC—a move that proved to be a big deal.

“That was really on purpose. We had the big talk about like, should we be like a nonprofit or should we be an LLC?” Nadine reflects.

“But we wanted to prove to ourselves that we could run a business and still be community-driven...I wanted to prove that it’s possible to create an ethical, fair, and healthy work environment, especially in the film industry, where you don’t always see that.”

Tiffanie describes this as being “deeply rooted in a community.” Periodt.

GAMU-GAMO: ECCENTRIC ARTISTS’ MOST PERSONAL FILM YET

Gamu-Gamo (meaning “moth” in Tagalog) is the short film Eccentric Artists is currently working on. The film was born out of crisis.

“It was 2021,” Jem explains. “I was having my quarter-life crisis. A lot of personal things were going on, family... and I started thinking, if I could just go to L.A. without any of the responsibilities I have with my family and stuff like that, what would happen?”

She approached Nadine with the idea for a Filipino-centric film exploring family dynamics, transformation, and grief, inspired in part by Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. The protagonist, Liezel, emerged from intimate conversations and shared experiences.

“Liezel is a mixture of Jem, of me, of the women in my life—my sister, best friends, mother, cousins,” says Nadine, the film’s writer. “All these women and our relationship with our mothers and families, and the want to do more, to be ourselves and have self-fulfillment, but have that juxtaposed against the expectations of an immigrant family and the responsibilities you're supposed to have.”

Liezel will be played by a dynamic actress, Janessa Floyd, and the film will feature indigenous music from the Philippines. The team’s goal is to capture the vulnerability and complexity of Filipino culture, particularly around grief.

“One thing we want to show is how Filipinos deal with grief. After a funeral, we’ll go back home and it’s karaoke, food, celebrating—and that’s in one day. That’s how it was when I was back in the Philippines and my grandma passed away,” Jem shares.

Eccentric Artists is launching a crowdfunding campaign for Gamu-Gamo this month, with events and workshops—including an art exhibition and VFX/SFX workshops—starting on March 15.

Follow Eccentric Artists on Instagram @eccentricartists.space and support their work by donating funds or resources, or simply sharing their posts. Reminder: they’re also super hirable. Consider reaching out for production on your next film, ad, or media project!