Jim Mendiola

Self-exiled Tejano living in Echo Park, Los Angeles, California. Filmmaker, writer, and amateur pundit.

A Rockefeller Media Fellow, and homeroom rep sophomore year of high school, Mendiola’s award-winning short "Pretty Vacant,” about a Chicana punk rocker, has screened in numerous festivals, museums, and colleges in the U.S. and Mexico.

His one-hour ITVS movie "Come and Take It Day" was developed at the Sundance Filmmaker's Lab and broadcast nationally on PBS in 2002. Mendiola’s latest narrative project, a rock and roll digital feature called “Speeder Kills,” screened at various film festivals across the country, including the 2004 Los Angeles Film Festival.

Mendiola has just directed a one-hour documentary pilot about Latino indie bands for cable television, directs a reality show for Mun2, and is currently developing a feature based on the Sandra Cisneros short story "Bien Pretty." He also makes music videos and takes photographs -- mainly of rock bands -- but that's only because Cheryl Burke won't return any of his phone calls.

Spurs fan.

LBJ and Robert Frank are personal heroes.

Born and raised in San Antonio, Texas.

¿Y que?