When Azza Cohen arrived in Washington, D.C., from California in the summer of 2022, she had little time to process the gravity of what she was stepping into. The documentary filmmaker had just completed her Master of Fine Arts degree when she was recommended for a position unlike any she had imagined—official videographer and director of the video for Vice President Kamala Harris. It was the first time the vice president would have a full-time video staff.
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Azza Cohen records the vice president speaking.Lawrence Jackson/The White House
“I still can’t believe someone recommended me,” Cohen, 32, said. She had been wrapping up her film studies at Stanford when she received a life-changing email. Hope Hall, former videographer for President Barack Obama, was looking for anyone “crazy enough” for a job. Cohen’s college professor at Princeton University, Purcell Carson, immediately thought of her, and within a week, she had packed her car and moved cross-country to join the White House staff.
Related: Kamala Harris: Our One-on-One With the Vice President
Her first day on the job—July 26, 2022—was a trial by fire. That morning, she completed security clearances and COVID-19 testing before being handed a camera and the vice president’s schedule. She told The Advocate that the first thing she filmed was a roundtable with disability rights activists in the vice president’s wood panel and painting-adorned ceremonial office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House Campus marking the anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. “I remember looking around the room and thinking, this group would never have been invited here before,” she recalled.
Azza Cohen captures Vice President Kamala Harris addressing the White House press pool.Lawrence Jackson/The White House
After that meeting, Cohen said, Harris performed a visual description of herself into Cohen’s camera—a standard accessibility practice in disability-inclusive spaces—only to be mocked later by right-wing media. “I remember standing there, filming her do it, and thinking, wow, she really walks the walk,” Cohen said. Later that day, she followed Harris to the vice president’s residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory, where the vice president hosted a celebration with longtime disability rights advocates, including Judy Heumann. “I was too nervous to ask Judy for a selfie,” Cohen admitted. “But it was one of those moments where I thought, ‘I work for an amazing person.’”
Capturing queer history
For Cohen filming history wasn’t just about capturing moments—it was about preserving them in a way that honored their significance. As a cinematographer, she said that she often had to suppress her emotions in real time, compartmentalizing them until she could process them later. But some moments were simply too powerful to ignore.
One of those wasthe signing ceremony for the Respect for Marriage Act on the South Lawn of the White House in December 2022.
Azza Cohen captures Vice President Kamala Harris speaking in front of a group of LGBTQ+ Biden-Harris administration staffers assembled on the steps of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus.Oliver Contreras Cruz/The White House
“It was a cold December day, and that didn’t matter because I remember so vividly crouching on the South Lawn with my camera and looking around me at this beautiful sea of rainbow people,” Cohen recalled. She had grown used to working in high-pressure situations, but this moment felt different. “It was so incredible—just really special to be in that sea of people, witnessing history, knowing that my boss played a role in making this happen.”
Another moment that stood out to Cohen was when WNBA star Brittney Griner returned to the U.S. after being imprisoned in Russia for nearly ten months. Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff attended her first game back in May 2023, meeting her backstage at Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles before the tip-off between the Phoenix Mercury and the Los Angeles Sparks. The Advocate was invited to travel with Harris to the game. Cohen was there with her camera, trying to take in the enormity of the moment. “I remember how gentle and warm the vice president was with her,” she said. “That was one of those moments when I took a second, and I thought, ‘Wow, here I am with two American heroes.’”
Cohen, who describes herself as “a late-in-life bloomer” who came out at 28, said that documenting Harris’ LGBTQ+ advocacy felt deeply personal.
She filmed the vice president’s historic June 26, 2023 visit to the Stonewall Inn, the birthplace of the modern LGBTQ+ rights movement, where Harris met with activists and reaffirmed her commitment to LGBTQ+ rights. “I remember thinking about all the people who had stood there before us, who had fought and protested so we could even be in that moment,” Cohen said.
Related: Kamala Harris Makes Historic Visit to Stonewall Inn, Vows to Fight Anti-LGBTQ+ Hate
One of her favorite projects was filming Harris’ video call with Brad Witherspoon and Raymond Cobane, a gay couple she married in 2004 as San Francisco’s district attorney.
The moment, which marked the 20th anniversary of Harris officiating some of the nation’s first same-sex marriages, was a rare joyful story amid a political climate often hostile to LGBTQ+ rights.
“There aren’t a lot of happy queer political stories, so this one felt extra special,” Cohen said. “I was getting married in June of last year, and we were deep in wedding planning and all the fun and chaos that comes with it. But I so distinctly remember thinking while recording how special it was that I got to be a part of this lineage of Kamala Harris. She has been this ally since the beginning, and it felt special to work for somebody who literally enabled same-marriage as an ally, as an elected official, and as an officiant of same-sex marriages. One of my most treasured memories was filming that.”
When Harris became the nominee
When President Joe Biden announced his decision to withdraw from the 2024 race, the political landscape shifted overnight. As speculation swirled, one thing became clear—Harris was poised to make history. For Cohen, who had spent the past two years filming Harris in public and deeply personal moments, this was another defining chapter in an already historic tenure.
Vice President Kamala Harris records a message direct to camera as Azza Cohen captures the moment.Lawrence Jackson/The White House
Cohen approached the transition with the same technical focus she had honed in the White House. “Every day I just said, she is a person,” Cohen recalled. “She happens to be the presidential candidate, but she is a person who needs white balance and angles like every other person I’ve ever filmed.”
But while the circumstances changed, Harris remained the same. “Something that I know, having known her before she was the candidate, is that she didn’t change,” Cohen reflected. “The circumstances changed, but she has always been excellent. She has always been brilliant and warm and quick on her feet.”
“I watched the world watch her,” she said. “Many people who hadn’t considered it before were now paying attention, and I just thought, ‘Wow, she’s the same person. She rises to every occasion.’ And I got to see it firsthand.”
The view from the motorcade
For many, the sight of a presidential or vice-presidential motorcade evokes awe—a fleet of black SUVs gliding through city streets, escorted by police and Secret Service, a symbol of power and movement at the highest levels of government. For Cohen, that view was her daily reality. She traveled with Harris to 11 countries and 91 cities across 27 states. But she never let it become routine.
“I never took it for granted,” Cohen said. “And I always told myself, if there’s ever a day when you’re in the motorcade and it’s not extremely exciting, that’s when you’re jaded, and it’s time for you to find a different job.”
She never reached that point. Every time she climbed into one of those vehicles, camera in hand, she was acutely aware of what it meant—to have a front-row seat to history, to be documenting a woman who had shattered barriers, and to be part of a team ensuring the world saw Kamala Harris the way she did.
Azza Cohen captures Vice President Kamala Harris stepping off Air Force Two.Lawrence Jackson/The White House
But beyond the symbolism was the sheer logistics of it all—the precision, the choreography, the moments of quiet inside the vehicles juxtaposed with the roar of crowds just outside. “I really never lost sight of being just some girl from the Midwest who got to lens the most important woman in the world,” she said.
And then, just as suddenly as she had entered the world of flashing lights and rolling motorcades, it ended at noon on January 20. The transition back to everyday life was abrupt—no more sweeping motorcade movements and instant access to corridors of power. But Cohen doesn’t dwell on the loss.
“Reality sets in,” she said. “But all I feel is gratitude for the experience and having been a part of an extraordinary couple of years and doing absolutely all that I possibly could to record Kamala Harris in a way that did her justice.”
Life after the White House
As Cohen’s time in the White House ended, she knew she was ready to tell new stories.
She and her wife, Kathleen Borschow, a stylist, recently launched their own production company, Cohen Borschow Media. “We thought we would come up with a cuter name, but everything was trademarked,” Cohen joked. “Then we thought, no—naming it after ourselves is feminist.”
Azza Cohen with her wife and business partner, Kathleen Borschow, at Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 Pride Month celebration at the vice presidential residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory.Polly Irungu/The White House
She is also set to write a bimonthly column for The Contrarian, a new Substack newsletter founded by Norm Eisen, a legal scholar and former White House ethics czar, and Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin. Her column will focus on gender, politics, and media—specifically what she calls “visual sexism,” the way women in power are scrutinized through images.
And her final shot of Harris? It was fitting. “I shot her waving goodbye as she boarded the flight to California with an all-female flight crew,” Cohen said. “She [gave a commemorative coin to] every single crew member—every one of them was a woman. She walked up the stairs, and my hands were frozen. I think my tear ducts were frozen because it was so cold. And she waved goodbye.”
Watch never-before-seen footage of Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 Pride party, shot by Azza Cohen below.
Each year of Harris’s vice presidency, she opened her home to the LGBTQ+ community in celebration of the advancement of equal rights and to call attention to the need for more progress. Invited guests gathered on the residence patio and around the swimming pool to enjoy food, drinks, and companionship. Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff welcomed activists, business leaders, artists, celebrities, drag queens, and icons from the LGBTQ+ community and urged them to continue the fight for equality.
Azza Cohen records the vice president speaking.Lawrence Jackson/The White House
Azza Cohen captures Vice President Kamala Harris addressing the White House press pool.Lawrence Jackson/The White House
Azza Cohen captures Vice President Kamala Harris speaking in front of a group of 
Vice President Kamala Harris records a message direct to camera as Azza Cohen captures the moment.Lawrence Jackson/The White House
Azza Cohen captures Vice President Kamala Harris stepping off Air Force Two.Lawrence Jackson/The White House
Azza Cohen with her wife and business partner, Kathleen Borschow, at Vice President Kamala Harris’s 2024 Pride Month celebration at the vice presidential residence at the U.S. Naval Observatory.Polly Irungu/The White House
