The Learning: Filmmaker Bio

Ramona Diaz (Director/Producer/Writer) is a Filipino-American filmmaker whose credits include Spirits Rising, a feature documentary about women's role in the 1986 People Power revolution in the Philippines. The film won a Student Academy Award, the Ida Lupino Directors Guild of America Award, a Golden Gate Award from the San Francisco International Film Festival, a Certificate of Merit from the International Documentary Association, and a Gold Apple from the National Educational Media Network. Spirits Rising has been screened internationally and broadcast on public television stations in the United States and Australia.

Ramona's documentary Imelda, about the former first lady of the Philippines, won the Excellence in Cinematography Award for Documentary at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival and the ABC News Videosource Award from the IDA. The film was released theatrically in the United States and the Philippines, screened in more than 50 film festivals internationally and broadcast on PBS' Independent Lens in 2005.

Her other directing credits include Don't Stop Believin': Everyman's Journey (2010), about the band Journey, their new lead vocalist Arnel Pineda (discovered on YouTube) and his homecoming in Manila. She is in development on Pacific Rims, based on the book of the same name by Rafe Bartholomew that looks at the Filipino national character through the country's obsession with basketball. Prior to directing, she was an associate producer for Cadillac Desert, a PBS series about the quest for water in the American West.

Ramona lives with her husband, Rajiv Rimal, and daughter in Baltimore. She is a graduate of Emerson College, Boston, and holds a master's degree in communications from Stanford University.