​Christopher Yudasny Alvarez is a first-generation Salvadoran American from Los Angeles. His family raised him to speak Spanish, which remains their home language. From his fifth-grade Gifted class up to eleventh-grade Honors English, he excelled in creative writing but was challenged by English grammar. At Cal State Fullerton, he wrote his first feature-length script entitled Lo_OPHOLE and moved it into upper-division screenwriting classes. After graduating, he began teaching kids filmmaking at over 100 schools for L.A.U.S.D. In this program he co-created hundreds of short films and short documentaries with elementary and middle school children. Out of all this content an educational series was developed for KLCS entitled YDP PRESENTS, which ran for one year. The series had twelve hours of programming co-created by Christopher. Chris went on to teach high school interns filmmaking in Long Beach in a program called LAMP, and some of those short films won local awards. Chris also taught film to incarcerated youth in Juvenile Detention Centers under the program FYI FILMS. During this time he started getting on set as a camera assistant and soon went on to DP a coming-of-age film entitled Boundary Springs. After being a freelance cinematographer for AFI Fest for eight years, the American Film Institute hired him as their in-house cinematographer/editor. Chris continues to head the AV team during AFI FEST in which he produces 50 shoots during the five days of the festival with a team of twelve camera operators and editors.  In 2020, he applied for the David Lynch MFA in Screenwriting program, where he completed two more feature-length scripts (a transcendental high school horror, and a coming of age family drama), as well as a TV pilot (a futuristic romance in a post-American collapse in the year 2088). His thesis script entitled LIL BOY, which is the true story of his family and his brother’s incarceration, became a semifinalist at the Austin Film Festival 2023 and is currently in the top 1% on Coverfly. LIL BOY also won the Los Angeles International Screenplay Award under the diversity initiative and became a quarterfinalist in 2024’s Nichol Fellowship. Currently, Chris plans to apply to a cinema studies PhD program, but he hopes to direct his award-winning screenplay by the summer of 2025.

Chris has been to El Salvador, Rome, Paris, Mexico, Costa Rica, and about half of the United States of America.  Chris knows four styles of partner dancing including Salsa, Bachata, Kizomba, and Zouk.  Chris is currently reading Alejandro Jodorowsky books and his collaborative graphic novels with Moebius.  Chris has had a deep interest with marvel comics and soccer since childhood, with a specific focus on the X-Men.  Chris fell in love with two books growing up, one was The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster and the other was Kindred by Octavia Butler.  Chris has attended hundreds of live concerts since age 13 and has witnessed the many music scenes that have passed through Los Angeles since 1997. Chris has studied the Coachella music festival very closely since 2008 and got to witness the musical artistry of Prince, Kraftwerk, Portishead, Rx Bandits, Beyonce, New Order, Nicolas Jaar, Janelle Monae, The Xx, The Gorillaz, Sigur Rós,J Balvin, Alt J, Jurassic 5, Jean-Michel Jarre, M.I.A., The Marias, Peso Pluma, Lana Del Rey, and Lez Claypool.  Chris enjoys playing the electric bass and has started creating his own music for his freelancing videos.  Chris also a licensed professional drone operator.  Throughout his entire film and music life experience, Christopher has been documenting electronic dance music culture in a documentary film called ENERGY; however, recently, his focus has shifted towards documenting the different partner dance scenes, shapeshifting culture around the world in every city every single weekend.


Chris inspires to be a film director not for profit but rather to use as a tool to diversify thought and community.