Cheryl Bookout is a filmmaker and visual storyteller based in Joshua Tree, California. She is currently directing the forthcoming feature documentary Moving Like Pond Water (2025), a hybrid film exploring the transformative power of creative expression among U.S. military veterans. Her recent directing work includes the award-winning short documentary Inside the Beauty Bubble (2021). Bookout’s producing credits span narrative, documentary, and experimental work, including Just a Friend (2022), Gloria’s Call (2019), and the sci-fi short PURE (2019). She is also a producer on Cheri Gaulke’s feature documentary Acting Like Women (2025). Her debut narrative screenplay, Women of Steel, is garnering recognition in national and international screenwriting competitions.
Beyond her creative practice, Cheryl is deeply rooted in community arts and nonprofit leadership. She is the co-founder and executive director of The Chimaera Project, a nonprofit championing women and non-binary filmmakers. She serves as president of the board of directors for the Joshua Tree Retreat Center and sits on the advisory board of the Mil-Tree Veterans Project. Cheryl is also the past president of the Southern California Women’s Caucus for Art and has been invited to speak on filmmaking and arts panels across the United States.
Fine Art Practice
Classic fairy tales and fables are my inspiration. I use frogs and other creatures to tell stories. My earliest childhood memories are the illustrations of Alice in Wonderland by John Tenniel.
The Clairvoyants, original painting, 12″ x 24″ x 2″
Why Frogs?
Most frogs require suitable habitat in both the terrestrial and aquatic environments, and have permeable skin that can easily absorb toxic chemicals. These traits make frogs especially susceptible to environmental disturbances, and thus frogs are considered accurate indicators of environmental stress: the health of frogs is thought to be indicative of the health of the biosphere. Frogs have survived in their current form for 250 million years, having survived countless ice ages, asteroid crashes, and other environmental disturbances, yet now one-third of amphibian species are on the verge of extinction. This should serve as an alarm call to humans that something is drastically wrong in the environment.
An ecological indicator they are
The most accurate so far
Pollution, destruction and disease
We need to hear their pleas
— Frog Poetry by Shruti Sengupta, 25, India
Branch Office, original drawing 14 x 17″