Biography

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 9 year old daughter.