David Zonana

David Zonana (born 22 November 1989) is a Mexican filmmaker known for his films regarding social issues, primarily featuring amateur actors. Zonana has directed several short films and two feature films, Workforce (Mano de obra) in 2019 and Heroic (Heroico) in 2023, which have received critical acclaim.

Zonana has premiered his films at several international film festivals, including those of Berlin, Sundance Film Festival, San Sebastián, Toronto, and Morelia and has won the Ariel Award for Best First Feature Film for Workforce in 2020. His second film, Heroico, about the training process of Mexican Army recruits, received 11 nominations for the Ariel Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay for Zonana.

Early life and background David Zonana Smeke was born in Mexico City on 22 November 1989. He explored poetry, photography, painting and music before pursuing a career in finance. He then abandoned his studies, seeking to travel to South America and planning on surviving by playing music in bars. "It was a dark period, I did not know what to do and just wandered around, ruminating on a thousand topics. But it was interesting to give myself that space for introspection to understand what my place was in the world", he stated to El Financiero.

The same year, Zonana was credited as associate producer of 600 Millas, the first feature film by Gabriel Ripstein. The film was selected to represent Mexico at the 88th Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category. Zonana also co-produced Chronic, written and directed by Michel Franco, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Sangre Alba (2016) was Zonana's second short film. In 2017, he served as an executive producer of Las Hijas de Abril (2017), a feature film again written and directed by Michel Franco. It debuted in the Un Certain Regard section at the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Jury Prize. Later that year, Zonana wrote and directed his third short film, Hermano, which premiered at the Morelia Film Festival and starred Humberto Busto. Regarding his early directing work, Zonana commented: "I did not study film, so even though the shorts may have some technical and narrative issues, they served as a way of learning and understanding myself as an auteur." Zonana filmed in a house at the upscale neighborhood Jardines del Pedregal and in Jalalpa, an impoverished borough of Mexico City where the real bricklayers that joined the cast lived. and was later screened at the 2019 San Sebastián International Film Festival where it competed for the Golden Shell. The same year, the film was selected for the Zurich and London film festivals. At the end of that year, the film was exhibited at the Morelia Film Festival, an important event for the director since "the Mexican public is always the priority", Zonana stated to Proceso. At the 62nd Ariel Awards, the director received two nominations for the film, Best Original Screenplay and Best First Feature Film, winning the latter.

Exposing the Mexican Army in Heroico 2023 Heroic (Heroico)