Jim Mendiola

Writer and director Jim Mendiola divides his time between his native San Antonio, Texas and San Francisco, California. A man of many talents, he served as the first Media Arts Curator at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco and he served as Director of the San Antonio CineFestival. He is a contributing writer for the Los Angeles, California based Frontera Magazine, Politico Internet Magazine, and the newspapers San Antonio Current and the San Francisco Bay Guardian. In 1997 he was awarded a Rockefeller Intercultural Media Fellowship for his film "An American Artist". In 1999 he received a Gateways Fellowship for documentary research on Mexican American Family Photos in Texas. His short film "Pretty Vacant" has received numerous awards and has been screened in numerous film festivals throughout Mexico and the United States. His film _Come and Take it Day (2001)_ was selected for development in the 2000 Filmmakers Laboratory at the Sundance Institute, further validating Jim Mendiola's growing stature as a writer and filmmaker.