Mexican director Patricia Riggen has had an extraordinary year with the success of the Sony Pictures faith-based, box office hit Miracles from Heaven, and now has been honored with a third “Best Director” nomination for the 31st Annual Imagen Awards for her direction of the inspirational film The 33. Patricia is a previous winner of two Imagen Awards for “Best Director” for the feature films Under the Same Moon and Girl in Progress. The Imagen Foundation will be hosting its 31st Annual Imagen Awards on September 9th, 2016 to honor and recognize the entertainment industry for its creative excellence and the positive portrayals of Latinos in television and film in Hollywood.
Riggen’s third Imagen Award nomination is for her remarkable work in “The 33, starring an ensemble cast including Antonio Banderas, Lou Diamond Philips, Rodrigo Santoro, Kate Del Castillo, Juliette Binoche, Mario Casas, Cote de Pablo, and Gabriel Byrne. Patricia beautifully captures the terrifying real events of August 5, 2010 when 33 minors were trapped underground in the San José Mine in Chile for 69 days.
Originally from Guadalajara, Mexico, Patricia Riggen started her career as a screenwriter, producer and film executive at the Mexican Film Institute. She later moved to New York to do an MFA in directing and screenwriting at Columbia University. Patricia’s thesis film, The Cornfield, a period short film set during the Mexican revolution, screened in over 30 international film festivals and received 20 awards; among them the Student Academy Award, the Mexican Academy Award for Best Short Film, the Student Emmy and DGA Awards. Her next film, the 30 minute documentary film Family Portrait, a story about poverty in Harlem, featuring Gordon Parks, won the Jury Award for Best Short Film at the Sundance Film Festival 2005.
Patricia got Hollywood’s attention with the direction of her first feature film Under the Same Moon, which premiered at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival to accolades and was quickly acquired for worldwide distribution by Fox Searchlight and The Weinstein Company. It was released theatrically in March 2008 to opening-weekend record numbers for a Spanish language film in the US and became a box office success in both Mexico and the U.S.
“I am very fortunate for the opportunities that I have been presented with over the years. Those opportunities have come with a lot of hard work and dedication. To see the success of ‘Miracles from Heaven’—which was a very special project for me— and now to be nominated for my third Imagen Award for ‘The 33,’ is quite incredible, says Riggen.
Patricia Riggen is one of few Latin-American female directors constantly working in Hollywood. Moreover, she was presented with the esteemed honor of being the first Latina director to be invited as a voting member of the Academy Awards. Patricia recently has signed on for her next film project Together Now with producers Carol Polakeff, Shelby Stone, and Chiara Tilesi, and the non-profit production company “We Do It Together”. The theme for the non-profit’s first project is women empowerment and focuses on women directing women; a film collaboration featuring distinguished actresses in lead roles directed by seven recognizable female directors from around the world. Patricia will begin filming her portion of the film in Mexico this coming November, and she is also in the processes of developing a new American television series with an all Latino cast.
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