Rafael Del Toro
Writer/Director, Rafael Del Toro, began his writing and filmmaking career at UC Berkeley, where he received Berkeley's highest award for film, the Eisner Award for his film, Maris. Rafael continued his studies at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts Graduate Film Program, as a Dean's Fellow, where he received a regional Student Academy Award (The Playroom), a Coca-Cola Refreshing Filmmaker's Award (Must Be Love), a nomination for the DGA's Best Latino Student Director, and a Sloan Foundation Production Grant. His thesis, a dark comedy film called 6ft. in 7min., was a Wasserman Finalist, screened at 47 film festivals world-wide, and won 14 awards. Rafael has spent 6 years at KNBC & Telemundo, producing, writing, directing, shooting and editing promos and commercials. In 2008, Rafael was selected as a Film Independent Project Involve Fellow, and was accepted into Film Independent's Director's Lab, where he workshopped his feature script, Mullet. That same year, the script won the Richard Vague/ Chris Columbus Award, providing pre-production funds for the film. In 2009, after winning Best Film and Best Director at the Comedy Short Cuts Film Festival, Rafael was given a script deal by NBC Studios to write his first comedy TV pilot, Eat Sleep, Gas. Most recently he received an Emmy for his work on the show, "Locally Green" and an Imagen Award for his work on, "Brown is the New Green." Rafael's upcoming projects include directing his first feature script, Mullet, and writing his next TV project, Loco News. Rafael Del Toro was awarded a Production grant at NYU in 2005 for 6 ft. in 7 min.