Actor / Actress, Director, Screenplay
Paola Mendoza
Born in Bogotá but immigrated to the US at age two with her mother and brother. Studied acting at UCLA (1999 - 2001). Later, moved to New York to continue studies at Sarah Lawrence College (2001 - 2004) where she graduated with a Masters in Acting and Theater Direction. As soon as she finished her studies she began her film career.
She starred in and co-wrote her first feature film On the Outs (2004), which had its world premiere at the 2004 Toronto International Film Festival. On the Outs won Jury Awards at the Deauville Film Festival and the Slamdance Film Festival, was selected for over 40 festivals including the Berlin Film Festival, and was nominated for an Independent Spirit Award and a Gotham Award. Mendoza’s role as a 17 year-old teen mother addicted to crack earned her a nomination for Best Supporting Actress at the Method Film Festival.
Mendoza’s first feature documentary, Autumn’s Eyes premiered in 2006 at the South by Southwest Festival. This story of a three year-old girl living in dire poverty, her adolescent mother, and the threat of winding up in foster care won Honorable Mention at the Bogotá Film Festival and Best Editing at the Woodstock Film Festival.
Also in 2006, Mendoza directed the documentary short Still Standing, the story of a grandmother’s struggle to rebuild her life after losing her home during Hurricane Katrina. This piece premiered as part of the Official Selection at the Full Frame Film Festival and was selected for Pangea Day. In 2007, she produced a feature documentary for Red Envelope Entertainment titled Without the King, which won the Special Jury Award at the Hot Docs Film Festival.
Her acting career began with a role in the short film Gabriel and Gato (2003) by Andrew Mudge. In 2007, she starred in Christopher Zalla’s Padre nuestro, which won the Jury Award at Sundance and screened at the New Directors/New Films Festival in Lincoln Center and at the San Sebastian Film Festival. The film was released in US theaters in April 2008 and had a successful run in theaters in Spain. She also appears in Daniel Schechter’s Goodbye Baby (2007), Michael Knowles’s One Night (2007), and Paul Starkman’s short film The Tree (2008), in Steven Tanenbaum’s Last Call (2008), Steven Peros’s The Undying (2009), Barry Jenkins’s short film Remigration (2011) and Princeton Holt’s Butterfly Chasers.
She co-directed and co-wrote and starred in Entre nos (2009), which had its world premiere at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival in New York (Tribeca All Access and Tribeca on Track) where the jury awarded it an Honorable Mention. That same year, Entre nos received the Audience Award at the Newport International Film Festival, the Jury Award at the Ft. Lauderdale International Film Festival and the City of Setúbal Award at the Festróia International Film Festival in Portugal. The film’s screenplay won a Jury Award at the IFP Market Festival.
In 2009, Paola made Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 Best Filmmakers” list.