Ramona S. Diaz — Director | Biography, Movies & Career

Biography

Ramona Diaz is an award-winning Filipino-American documentary filmmaker whose films have screened at Sundance, the Berlinale, Tribeca, the Viennale, IDFA, and many other top-tier film festivals. All of Ramona's feature-length films—Imelda (2004), The Learning (2011), Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey (2012), Motherland (2017) and her latest film A Thousand Cuts (2020) - which chronicles the crackdown on the Philippine press and the work of journalist Maria Ressa, now a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Motherland won an award at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival and had its international premiere at the 67th Berlin International Film Festival. It was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award for best Documentary, a Peabody Award, and a Gaward Urian Award from the Filipino Film Critics.

She has received funding from ITVS, Sundance, CAAM, Tribeca, Catapult Film Fund, Chicken & Egg, MacArthur Foundation, the IDA, Cinereach and Creative Capital, among others. Ramona served as a film envoy for the American Film Showcase, a joint program of the U.S. Dept. of State and the USC School of Cinematic Arts that brings American films to audiences worldwide. She has conducted master classes and production workshops all over the world. Ramona was awarded a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship and was inducted into the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences (AMPAS) in 2016, and in 2017 received a Women at Sundance Fellowship and a Chicken & Egg Pictures Breakthrough Filmmaker Award. She is a current recipient of a U.S. Artist Fellowship. Ramona is a graduate of Emerson College and holds an MA from Stanford University.

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