Roya Rastegar, Director of Programming Los Angeles Film Festival

Sometimes our careers take us places we never thought they could. That's certainly true for Roya Rastegar, who began her career on Wall Street and realized shortly after, she needed a radical change. She applied and was accepted into UC Santa Cruz's PhD program where she studied the history of consciousness under civil rights activist and famed academic Angela Davis. From there she used her studies to curate independent films and now works as the Director of Programming at the Los Angeles Film Festival. On this week's podcast, Sophia and Roya talk about the anxieties and joys of being an outsider, how to make small and large changes in your life, and why representation on and off screen is essential.