Kersti Jan Werdal's work centers around collective memory, hidden truths within cultures that experience(d) erasure, and place. Demanding an active viewer, she typically situates specific plot-points opaque, and prefers to pivot away from the expository. Werdal questions seeking to understand different people and cultures through reduction or encouraging others to explain themselves, and considers this problematic. She is influenced by ""cinéma vérité"" style filmmaking and frequently shoots observationally, however, subscribes to the notion that all filmmaking is inherently subjective, and therefore narrative. Her films focus on off-screen sound and framing of the subject to tell a story, while often working within a structuralist form. She frequently works in Washington State, where she was born and raised, incorporating landscapes and histories of the region. She holds a BA in Sociocultural Anthropology from Columbia University, and an MFA in Film/Video from California Institute of the Arts.