William D. Caballero

William David Caballero is an American multimedia filmmaker known for his often autobiographical work that explores issues of identity through animation and miniatures.

Early life and education Caballero was born in Coney Island to Puerto Rican parents and raised in Fayetteville, North Carolina, where he lived in trailer park. He was awarded the Bill Gates Millennium Scholarship in 2001. He graduated from the Pratt Institute in 2006, where he majored in digital art and minored in art history. He earned a master's degree from New York University in 2008.

Career In 2010, Caballero's feature-length debut American Dreams Deferred premiered at the New York International Latino Film Festival, and he was commissioned by the Apollo Theater to create Speak! So The World Will Listen! Uganda, a multimedia concert with testimony from child soldiers in the country. That same year, Caballero released the short film How You Doin', Boy? Voicemails from Gran'Pa inspired by voicemail messages from his grandfather. This project evolved into the webseries Gran’pa Knows Best, which was acquired by HBO Latino in 2015.

Caballero was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2018. The latter aired on the PBS series POV Shorts in 2023. He produced two episodes of the A Little Off the Top webseries in 2023, the second of which was created to promote COVID-19 vaccination.

The feature documentary TheyDream, based on interviews with his family, premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival in the NEXT category and received the NEXT Special Jury Award. He resides in Los Angeles.

A Little Off the Top 2 episodes

NEXT Special Jury Award

NEXT Innovator Award