Profiles: William Vega | Proimágenes Colombia

Director/Screenwriter born in Cali in 1981. His first film La Sirga has earned him outstanding reviews and a reputation as one of the Colombian film industry’s young, promising talents. The film had its world premiere at the 65^th Cannes Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight and has been selected for major festivals around the world including the Discovery section of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) and the Latin Horizons section of the San Sebastian Festival.
 
It was Vega’s discovery of La Cocha Lake that set fate working in his favor. The short film Simiente (2011) grew out of this encounter and became a kind of prelude to La Sirga. Prior to directing his own first film, Vega was assistant director to Oscar Ruiz Navia on El vuelco del cangrejo and directed the short film Amnesia (2001), included in the Official Selection of the Havana New Latin American Film Festival’s short film category (Cuba, 2002); Sunrise (2003), which he also co-wrote, selected for the Latin American Film Encounters at the Toulouse Festival’s “Sección Ecran Libre” (France, 2006); and Tricolor fútbol club (2005) produced by Antorcha Films and Cine Colombia, which screened in over 250 multiplexes throughout Colombia. Vega currently teaches Screenwriting at Cali’s School of Digital Film and Audiovisual Arts.
 
He is a graduate of the Universidad del Valle’s School of Communications and Journalism (Colombia 2003) and specialized in Film and Television Screenwriting at the School of Arts and Entertainment (TAI) in Madrid (Spain 2008). Vega has worked as a director, screenwriter and assistant director on numerous film and television projects.
 
His professional experience includes directing and screenwriting creative content for television projects such as Educatv (2004) produced by Telepacifico for the Colombian Ministry of Education, Ecopetrol and the Carvajal Foundation and winner of the Best Director at the 2004 Telefestival Audiovisual sponsored by Video Joven ATEI (Spain) for educational and cultural video and television; and Juan Mochilas (2005), which he directed for Señal Colombia’s agricultural, environmental and nature channel. The latter project provided him with an opportunity to travel across Colombia and become familiar with a problem that touches him deeply: the armed conflict, which he began to chronicle using his own audiovisual perspective.