Today, this UCLA alumnus can be found behind the camera, but a few years ago, she spent much of her time on horseback.

Kate Mathews is now a writer, director and producer, but they were a competitive equestrian in high school. Their journey to filmmaking took them from representing the United States internationally to studying environmental science and eventually transferring into UCLA’s selective film program. Since graduating in June, they have produced short films and even started their own production company, Periastra Pictures.

Mathews said they have always loved stories, and as an only child with an unconventional high school experience, movies helped them develop a sense of self while they attended school online to accommodate their travel schedule for competitions.

[Related: ‘Every body is a Broadway body’: UCLA alum stitches identity into costume design]

“My connection to other people was watching movies and shows and getting really immersed in fictional worlds,” Mathews said. “It was my way to develop taste and almost model how to interact with other people because I wasn’t in a normal high school setting.”

At UCLA, Mathews began working on student films and taking film classes. After years of independent schooling, Mathews said she found community in her roommates and other people living on her floor, who introduced them to UCLA’s chapter of Delta Kappa Alpha, a professional film fraternity. Mathews joined the fraternity, which produces student films, as a sophomore.

As an environmental studies student, Mathews said DKA gave them a creative outlet and a way to practice filmmaking outside UCLA’s film program. She added that her first role on set was as a production assistant, where she helped with equipment and production design. The next quarter, they were a producer for “Triptych,” another DKA film.

“There was so much I didn’t know, even just terminology-wise, about things we needed,” Mathews said. “Trial and error, learning by doing, that kind of thing, and I’ve definitely gotten much better. And DKA was a big part of the reason why I’ve gotten so much better as a producer.”

In fall 2024, she wrote and directed her first film with DKA, “Things You Leave Behind.” Mathews said the film was in part inspired by Celine Song’s 2023 movie “Past Lives,” particularly for its exploration of how love lingers past a relationship’s end through nonlinear storytelling.

“For me, themes of connection have always been interesting, and those conflicting, nuanced feelings about loving someone and holding a lot of pain towards them,” she said. “It’s especially interesting to me because in high school, I was largely on my own as far as close personal relationships because I was out competing so much.”

Mathews said she originally planned to minor in film, television and digital media, but after taking more film classes and working with DKA, she applied to switch and was later accepted into the major.

Mathews continued to be inspired by environmental studies, though, and in their second year, they began working with lecturer Alex Franklin to research films with environmental themes.

“I’d never thought of something about the scientific impact, or the intersection of movies, television shows and popular scientific understanding,” Franklin said. “She and I basically just started nerding out on this stuff because we started thinking about and talking about all the big movies that have environmental messages or themes.”

Franklin and Mathews discussed popular movies like “Avatar” and “Avengers: Endgame,” noting how they address the environment in different ways, Franklin said. The two began developing a course on environmentalism in film, which they have continued to work on since Mathews’ graduation.

Mathews said even films they love, like “Interstellar,” use climate change as a plot point but avoid commenting on it outright.

“Films do a lot of bending over backwards to avoid doing substantive messaging on environmentalism,” Mathews said. “Even if I’m mainly a filmmaker, I would love for my films to be vessels for that kind of important education.”

Cruz Carratala, a film, television and digital media student in Mathews’ graduating class, directed a music video for the band Willowake with Mathews as the second assistant director.

“There was a lot of extras on the project – so a lot of people to manage and organize,” Carratala said. “I wanted to reach out to someone that I knew was going to be able to handle a large group of people but also keep a good vibe on set.”

For their thesis, Mathews was inspired by their experiences riding horses, which they began at 4 years old, and wrote a feature-length script about a fictional competitive equestrian.

Mathews said she still plans to write and direct her own films but is currently prioritizing production work. She helped produce senior thesis films such as Caleb Gabrielson’s “Crossroads” and Lana Tania’s “Get Wok’d,” and she recently worked in the camera department of the upcoming horror film “Devotion.”

“Writing and directing my own stuff has helped me understand how important it is to have people who will fight for you on your crew,” Mathews said. “It’s such a big endeavor to bring something to the screen, even if it’s a small student film. So, I started finding so much meaning in being able to help people make their own projects because I always knew how it felt to try and make my own.”