Biography
Paloma Zapata (Murcia, 1979) is a film director and producer, founder of La Fábrica Naranja. She is a member of Dones Visuals and the European Women's Audiovisual Network (EWA).
Her career begins in music video direction, with over a hundred clips for labels including Warner, Universal and Polydor: a relationship with music that permeates her entire subsequent filmography.
From the music video she moves into the documentary feature. Casamance (Sheffield Doc/Fest), Peret: yo soy la rumba (BAFICI) and Juliette & Camille (Locarno Pro) trace a coherent body of work around identity, travel and music, a vision that in 2022 leads to her selection for the Circle Women Doc Accelerator.
International recognition comes in 2023 with La Singla, a Spanish-German co-production premiered at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, San Sebastián and Hot Docs. The film wins the Feroz Award 2024, is distributed in more than fifteen countries and broadcast on ARTE, NHK and ZDF, establishing Zapata as one of the leading directors in music documentary cinema in Spain.
In 2025 she receives the GAC grant and the SGAE screenwriting grant for The Caprices, her first fiction project. In 2026 she is selected for Berlinale Talents and completes the edit of Juliette & Camille, her fourth music documentary.
Alongside her creative work, she is active as a mentor and speaker in film education and discussion. She has mentored within ESCAC's Ópera Prima programme, and served as an expert mentor in the Atenea Programme of the Biennal Internacional Dona i Cinema (Valencia, 2024). She has led screenwriting and directing workshops on the music documentary short at In-Edit Talents (IN-EDIT, Barcelona) and at the Territorio Sur workshop in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, and has taken part in panels such as "Desfolklorizing the Roma in cinema" at the CA2M Image Studies Conference (Madrid, 2024).