Isabel Castro

Director, Selena y Los Dinos

Isabel Castro is a five time Emmy-nominated, Mexican-American filmmaker who combines a practice in journalism and art to tell stories about immigration, civil rights and identity. Her first feature, "Mija" , had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in 2022 and was a New York Times Critics' Pick, recipient of a Cinema Eye award, on the DOC NYC shortlist and won the Grand Jury Prize at the Champs-Élysées Film Festival. She directed, produced and filmed the Emmy-nominated, award-winning documentary short "USA v Scott" (Tribeca 2020, The New Yorker), Emmy-nominated "Darlin" (Tribeca 2019, NYT OpDocs) and GLAAD award-winning "Crossing Over" (Univision/Participant Media). She’s also worked on dozens of stories as a producer, cinematographer and multimedia journalist for The New York Times, as an Edward R. Murrow-award winning producer at The Marshall Project, as a producer covering civil rights and policy at VICE on HBO and as a director/producer on Netflix's Emmy-nominated series "Pandemic". Castro was named one of Filmmaker Magazine’s “25 New Faces of Independent Film'' , DOC NYC’s “40 Under 40”, and she was nominated for an Independent Spirit award. She has won fellowships from Chicken & Egg, Firelight Media, NBC Studios, Points North Institute, SFFILM+Catapult, and Concordia Studio.
She is currently in post-production on her second feature, produced by Motto Pictures and Polygram Entertainment, and in development on her scripted feature debut.