Diane Paragas is an award-winning writer/director, editor, cinematographer and producer of narrative features, documentaries and commercials.

In 2019, Paragas completed her debut narrative feature, Yellow Rose, about an undocumented Filipino-American teen pursuing a dream to become a country music singer. The film won over a dozen Grand Jury and Audience Awards. Yellow Rose is the first Filipino-American film to be distributed by a major Hollywood studio and will be released by Sony Pictures in the near future.

Paragas is currently in pre-production for a bold feature documentary about a wrongfully convicted illegal immigrant called “The Three Lives of David Wong” that uses puppetry to tell its story. Paragas is also developing The Lizard Garden, a magical realism film set in Japanese occupied Manila during WWII.

Ms. Paragas is a 2020 recipient of the prestigious Creative Capital Award and an inaugural fellow of the Geena Davis Institute.