Sandra Tapia
With a BA in Audiovisual Communication from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, she began her career in 2005 at Oberon Cinematogràfica where she participated, among others, in films such as Antonio Chavarrías’ The Lives of Celia, Claudia Llosa’s Madeinusa and Milk of Sorrow, the second nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. In November 2009, she joined the team at ARCADIA MOTION PICTURES, together with Ibon Cormenzana, in order to produce top quality feature films with new European talent and international potential.
She initially took on tasks of production coordination, postproduction and project development, becoming an associate producer in 2012 and executive producer in 2015. Her filmography includes outstanding films such as Pablo Berger’s Snow White and Abracadabra, Mateo Gil’s Blackthorn and Realive, Claudia Llosa’s Aloft, Julio Medem’s The Tree of Blood or more recently Celia Rico’s Journey to a Mother's Room and Rodrigo Sorogoyen’s still unreleased Madre, based on the Academy Award nominee short of the same name. Many of the films she has participated in have been selected and picked up awards at international festivals and they have all been distributed internationally. Many have also been international co-productions.
Pablo Berger
In 1988, his short film Mama won the Grand Prize at the Alcalá de Henares Film Festival. In 1990, he moved to New York to study a Master’s Degree in Film Direction at New York University.
His feature debut, the Spanish-Danish co-production Torremolinos 73 (2003), picked up a plethora of national and international awards as well as four nominations for the Goya Awards.
In 2002 he released the Spanish-French co-production Blancanieves (Snow White). Among other prizes, it won ten Goya Awards in 2013 (including best feature film and original screenplay), represented Spain at the 2013 Academy Awards and won the special Jury prize at the San Sebastian Film Festival. It was also nominated for the European Film Awards for best feature length film and best director and for a César Award for best foreign language film in 2014.
In 2015 he was appointed Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.
His latest film, Abracadabra, premiered in summer of 2017 and was one of the three finalists to represent Spain at the Academy Awards.
In 2018 he was invited to be a member of the Hollywood Academy.
Neús Ballús
Born in Mollet del Vallès (Barcelona) in 1980, she studied filmmaking and Creative Documentary at Pompeu Fabra University (Barcelona). Her first feature-length film, La plaga (2013), premiered at the 63rd Berlinale Forum, was nominated for the European Film Awards (“European Discovery”), the LUX Prize Awards, the Goya Prizes, and has received more than 20 international prizes, including 4 Premis Gaudí and the prestigious and historical 57th Premi Sant Jordi to the Best Spanish First Film.
Her second feature, Staff Only (El viaje de Marta) premiered at Berlinale Panorama, and is actually screening in festivals around the world, and has been commercially released in cinemas in France (July 2019) and Spain (October 2019).
Strongly interested in cinema in the boundaries of documentary and fiction, she has specialized in scriptwriting, editing and working with nonprofessional actors. She is actually producing her third feature, The Odd-Job Men (Seis días corrientes).
Nacho Vigalondo
Born in Cabezón de la Sal (Cantabria), he began studying Audiovisual Communication at the University of the Basque Country. However, it wasn’t long before he left school in search of more practical and personal training. His natural talent for comedy did the rest. A short film screenwriter and actor in commercials and on several TV shows, Nacho had a day in the sun when his third short film as director, 7:35 in the Morning, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2004 in this category.
In 2007, he released his feature film debut, Timecrimes, very successfully screened at the Sundance Festival to automatically become a cult film. His second feature, Extraterrestrial, is an unusual romantic comedy involving an alien invasion. His next piece, the thriller Open Windows, managed to open the doors to Hollywood for him, where he went on to make a name for himself little by little. An example is his film Colossal, a reformulation of the giant monster genre with Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis. He is currently about to premiere El vecino, his first Netflix original series.
Emma Lustres
Producer Emma Lustres (O Grove, 1975), together with Borja Pena, founded the VACA FILMS STUDIO, S.L.U. audiovisual production company in January 2003 with a goal of becoming a film and television producer based in Galicia (Spain), capable of developing and producing top quality, commercially successful projects targeting the national market and that are highly receptive to internationalization. In an effort to be present in the sector’s main forums, Emma Lustres is a member of the board of the AEC (Asociación Estatal de Cine/State Film Association). She has participated as a producer in Quién a hierro mata (2019), Cien años de perdón (2015) or Celda 211 (2009)
Marisa Fernández Armenteros
Producer in the Mediapro cinema division, producer of projects like Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona or Midnight in Paris or Roman Polanski’s Carnage, among others. She is currently working on Woody Allen’s latest film with a provisional title, Rifkin’s Festival, shot in San Sebastian and in the process of post-production.
She has also worked with Spanish directors like Javier Fesser on Camino, Isabel Coixet on Mapa de los sonidos de Tokio and Endless Night, and Fernando León de Aranoa on Princesas and Amador.
She has previously worked in the development department at Europroducciones and as a project reader for Morena Films, Sigecine and Lolafilms. In 2000 and 2001, she worked with Eurimages, European Co-Production Fund, and with the Audivisual Fund of the European Parliament in Brussels.
