PAUL ESPINOSA
Espinosa Productions
Independent Filmmaker
4800 Marlborough Drive
San Diego, CA 92116
619-284-9811
espinosa@electriciti.com

Personal Bio/Other Information:
Paul Espinosa is an award-winning Independent producer/writer/director based in San Diego. In 1997, he formed Espinosa Productions as a film and video company specializing in documentary and dramatic films focused on the US-Mexico border region. He served as the Executive Director for Public Affairs and Ethnic Issues for KPBS-TV (1990-1994) and as the Senior Producer and Director of the KPBS Office of Latino Affairs (1980-1990), which he created in 1980. Specializing in Latino and US-Mexico border topics, Espinosa has produced, directed, written and hosted numerous programs for PBS.

Espinosa received his B.A. degree from Brown University in Anthropology and his Ph.D. from Stanford University, also in Anthropology, where he specialized in the cultural analysis of television communication. He has received major production funding from many national and state agencies, including the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Humanities, American Playhouse, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the California Public Broadcasting Commission, the Pacific Mountain Network Program Fund, McDonald's Corporation, and the state humanities councils of California, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona.

Espinosa was a founding member of the California Chicano News Media Association (San Diego) and served as the group's President from 1983-1986. He served a four-year term on the California Council for the Humanities and was one of the first appointees to the City of San Diego's Select Board on Binational Issues. In 1990 he was invited by the Mexican government to participate in "Chicanos 90: Primera Semana de Cine y Video Chicanos," the first major retrospective of Chicano film and video work to appear in Mexico.

Public Lecture Topics:

Paul Espinosa has lectures and screened at many universities and community centers across the country including Stanford, Temple, University of Illinois, University of Texas, Universidad Iberoamericana (Tijuana), Museum of Modern Art in Houston, Guadalupe Cultural Center in San Antonio, and the Universities of California at Irvine, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, Santa Barbara, and San Diego.

Public Programs:

Films

  • The Border, a two-hour special about life along the US-Mexico border
  • The US-Mexico War: 1846-1848, a four-hour binational documentary series with KERA-TV in Dallas, commemorating the 150th anniversary of a war which was a pivotal event in US-Mexican history
  • ...and the earth did not swallow him, a feature length American Playhouse drama funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, about one year in the life of a young Mexican American boy and his migrant farmworker family
  • The Hunt for Pancho Villa, a documentary for The American Experience examining Villa's raid on the US and the American expedition which was sent after him in 19161
  • 492 Revisited, a documentary on a dramatic art exhibit providing a critical perspective on the quincentenary of Columbus' journey
  • Los Mineros, the story of Mexican American copper miners' 50-year struggle for justice in Arizona for The American Experience
  • The New Tijuana, a one-hour documentary portraying the dynamic economic and political changes shaping Tijuana, Mexico

Paul Espinosa has been listed in the Directory of California Thinkers since 17-May-1999.