Diego Quemada-Díez

Following its success, La Jaula de Oro earned over 80 national and international awards, including nine Ariel Awards from the Mexican Film Academy.

• Name — Diego Quemada-Diez • Occupation — Film director - screenwriter - cinematographer - producer • Years Active — 1994-present Diego Quemada-Diez (born in Burgos, Spain) is a Spanish-born Mexican film director, screenwriter, cinematographer, and producer. He is best known for his debut feature La jaula de Oro (The Golden Dream, 2013). The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, where it won three distinctions, including the Un Certain Talent Award, the Gillo Pontecorvo Award, and the François Chalais Special Mention Award. Following its success, La Jaula de Oro earned over 80 national and international awards, including nine Ariel Awards from the Mexican Film Academy.

Quemada-Diez was born in Burgos, Spain. His parents separated when he was eight years old, after which he moved with his mother to Barcelona. His mother was a schoolteacher with an interest in the arts and progressive politics, and she frequently travelled to Guatemala and Mexico, where she had connections to missionaries associated with Liberation Theology. He has credited her influence as formative to his social and artistic outlook. As a child he attended a progressive art school and developed an interest in painting, drawing, and writing. He has cited Shane (George Stevens, 1953) as the film that first inspired him to pursue filmmaking. Without access to film school in Spain or industry connections, he began working as a production runner on commercial productions in Barcelona, eventually rising to production coordinator under director Isabel Coixet. At the age of 17, following his mother's death, he moved to Mexico, where he sought opportunities and pursue his ambition of becoming a film director. He later relocated to Los Angeles, where he studied cinematography at the American Film Institute on a scholarship, and graduated with a short film, A Table Is a Table (2001).

Quemada-Diez began his career as a camera assistant on Ken Loach's Land and Freedom (1995), a drama based on Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell. He went on to work with Loach on two further films: Carla's Song (1996) and Bread and Roses (2000). Loach's filmmaking approach significantly influenced Quemada-Diez, particularly his methods of filming in narrative sequence, keeping actors unaware of upcoming plot developments, maintaining the camera at eye level, and working with non-professional actors in real locations. He has cited these principles as central to his own directorial practice.

In the late 1990s and 2000s, Quemada-Diez worked as a camera operator across multiple feature productions. His credits during this period include Any Given Sunday (Oliver Stone), 21 Grams (Alejandro González Iñárritu), Man on Fire (Tony Scott), Constant Gardener (Fernando Meirelles), and She Hate Me (Spike Lee).

In 2002, while making a documentary in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Quemada-Diez began a multi-year research process, interviewing migrants traveling through Mexico on freight trains. Over the course of six years, he conducted more than 600 interviews, compiling what he described as a "collective testimony" of the migrant experience. He relocated to Mexico City around 2007 to concentrate full-time on the project. In 2010, he received a Cinéfondation grant from the Cannes Film Festival to participate in L'Atelier, which provided support for the development of the feature. The film was co-written with Gibran Portela and Lucía Carreras and produced by Quemada-Diez's company, Kinemascope Films, in partnership with Machete and Animal de Luz. • Illustration — Brandon Lopez, Karen Martinez, Diego Quemada-Diez, Rodolfo Dominguez at La Jaula de Oro premiere in Mexico city The film premiered at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival in the Un Certain Regard section, where it won three awards. It later received nine Ariel Awards from the Mexican Film Academy, the Best Ibero-American Film at the first Fenix Awards, the Best First Mexican Feature Film Award at the Morelia Film Festival, the Golden Gateway Of India award in the Mumbai Film Festival, the Best International Feature Film at the Zurich Film Festival, and the Satyajit Ray Foundation's Director of the Year award, among many other accolades. The film was also selected as one of the favorite films of Ken Loach.

• Year — Title — Type — Awards — Notes • 2001 — A Table is a Table (Una mesa es una mesa) — Short film — 9 — AFI graduation • 2006 — I Want to Be a Pilot (Quiero ser piloto) — Short film — 50+ — Premiered at Sundance FF, Locarno FF, Telluride FF, Sao Paulo IFF • 2006 — La Morena — Short documentary — - — Competed at Morelia International Film Festival • 2013 — La jaula de oro (The Golden Dream) — Feature film — 80+ — Premiered at Cannes FF (Un Certain Regard), London IFF, Karlovy Vary IFF, Busan IFF, and others.

Before directing his first feature film, Quemada-Diez worked in camera departments on films by directors including Ken Loach, Isabel Coixet, Oliver Stone, Alejandro González Iñárritu, Tony Scott, Spike Lee, Fernando Meirelles and Joel Schumacher. • Year — Film — Director — Role • 1995 — Land and Freedom — Ken Loach — Clapper loader • 1996 — Carla's Song — Ken Loach — Assistant camera • 1996 — Things I Never Told You — Isabel Coixet — Camera department • 1999 — Any Given Sunday — Oliver Stone — Camera operator • 2000 — Bread and Roses — Ken Loach — Assistant camera • 2003 — 21 Grams — Alejandro González Iñárritu — Camera operator • 2004 — Man on Fire — Tony Scott — Camera operator • 2004 — She Hate Me — Spike Lee — Camera operator • 2005 — The Constant Gardener — Fernando Meirelles — Camera operator • 2007 — The Number 23 — Joel Schumacher — Camera department • 2008 — The Elephant King — Seth Grossman — Cinematographer

Quemada-Diez is a naturalized Mexican citizen. After years of working in the United States and learning from his mentors in the film industry, he decided to settle in Mexico, where he focuses on telling stories that resonate with the migrant experience and address social issues affecting Latin America. He is also a member of various film organizations, including the Mexican Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences (AMACC).