Diana Sanchez, originally from Toronto, moved to Barcelona in 1994,
intending to stay for a year, which finally stretched to fourteen.
During that time, she began working for TIFF in many roles, including
in the volunteer department, in the guest office and as the late Ramiro
Puerta’s assistant before being named International Programmer for TIFF
in 2002. Her focus is on Spain, Portugal and Latin America. Diana
travels extensively throughout Latin America and is deeply involved in
the future of cinema of those countries. In 2005, she served on a jury
for the Colombian Film Institute to determine which local feature-film
projects received state funding. In 2007, she participated in the
first-ever film and educational projects jury for the government of
Ecuador. She has also served on many film festival juries in Spain and
is highly involved in that nation’s industry. Diana consults for
several film festivals, including the International Film Festival
Rotterdam and Skip City, a digital film festival in Japan, and is the
director of Miami Encuentros at the Miami International Film Festival.