BIOS

Diane Paragas - Director / Producer

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

Paragas began her career in documentaries. In 2012, she co-directed Brooklyn Boheme, a feature length documentary about an African American arts movement that she co-directed with Nelson George. The film premiered on Showtime and went on to win the Black Reel Award for TV Best Documentary.

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 and was distributed by Sony Pictures theatrically in 2020 to critical acclaim inuding several best of the year awards from Variety, Rotten Tomatoes and Entertainment Tonight. Yellow Rose made history by being the first Filipino American film theatrically distributed by a major Hollywood studio.

Diane owns and operates Brooklyn-based Civilian Studios. Through her company, she is developing a bold pop opera film: Guerrilla Bitches which follows a female vigilante group break free from a comfort woman camp in Japanese occupied Philippines during WWII. Paragas is also developing a rock bio pic about 1960s pioneering all female rock band Fanny.

Diane recently directed an episode of the 2nd Season of BAFTA nominated Little America for Apple Plus with Oscar winner Sian Heder (Coda) and Lee Eisenberg (Lessons in Chemistry) as showrunners.

Ms Paragas was awarded a 2022 United States Artist Fellowship - past winners include Barry Jenkins, Lee Isaac Chung and Kelly Reichardt. She has received fellowships and support from the The Sundance Institute, Geena Davis Institute, CAAM, The Bertha Foundation and Creative Capital .  She was also selected for Goldhouse’s A100 list of Most Impactful Asians of 2020 along with film directors Bong Joon Ho, Lulu Wang, Jon Chu and Taika Waititi.

In her spare time, she is a short order cook, driver and part time school teacher for her tween daughter. 

Leslie norville - producer

Leslie Norville (Producer) most recently produced the feature documentary, A Ballerina’s Tale, a documentary about Misty Copeland the first African American female principal dancer at New York’s American Ballet Theatre. The film was named best documentary by the African-American Film Critics Association and was released theatrically in the US in 2015 by Sundance Selects. Some of Leslie’s additional credits include Finding The Funk, an official selection at the 2013 SXSW Film Festival about the history of funk music, narrated by Ahmir 'Questlove' Thompson of the Roots; and Disdain The Mundane an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary short featuring legendary NY Knick, Walt 'Clyde' Frazier. Leslie is also the recipient of both the Tribeca Documentary Fund and Funding Exchange grants. Leslie’s focus is on character driven films that reflect cultural perspectives rarely seen on screen. She’s currently developing a feature adaptation of Lori L. Tharps’ popular memoir Kinky Gazpacho, about a young black woman’s coming of age as she travels through Spain. This will be her first narrative feature as a producer. 

Cecilia Mejia - Producer

Cecilia Mejia (Co-Producer) has worked in development for several nonprofit organizations, including NGOs affiliated with the UN. Having worked for the former Assistant Attorney General of the Charities Bureau, she was inspired to pursue a Master’s degree in Public Administration and Affairs. She followed up her studies at the Columbia Business School Developing Leaders Program for Nonprofit Professionals. She’s worked with several grassroots organizations focusing on underrepresented communities, which lead to her working on a short documentary about the struggles of detained undocumented families. She produced a short film (YELLOW ROSE), and is in development for a number of projects.  She most recently worked on the Development team for Scenarios USA, a nonprofit that uses film and writing to engage young people on issues of social justice, identity and health by asking “What matters to you?

Liron Reiter - Editor / Producer

Liron Reiter is a filmmaker and editor living and working in New York City. Her work ranges from web series to short and feature length documentaries and narrative films.

Liron worked on A Ballerina's Tale which premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival in 2015. The film follows the rise of Misty Copeland as she attempts to become the first African American principal dancer in a national ballet company. Liron is currently working on a six-part documentary series about reforming education in America called Superschool. In 2018 she cut her first narrative feature, Yellow Rose, a film about an undocumented Filipino-American teen pursuing her dream to become a country music singer in Texas. The film won the Grand Jury Prize and audience award at the Asian Pacific Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize and audience award at the Urban World Festival, and the Jury Prize at the Bentonville Film Festival. Liron's future projects include a true crime documentary titled The Three Lives of David Wong which received the Bertha Foundation and Creative Capital grants. The documentary short tells the story of a wrongly convicted, undocumented Chinese man facing a life sentence for a crime he did not commit and his 20 year fight for justice.

Liron graduated from The University of Southern California film school in 2002. She worked in production on commercials and Hollywood films before moving to New York in 2008 to focus on independent filmmaking.