Faculty Bio
 | Ramon MenendezDepartment of Graduate Film |
Biography
Menéndez made his feature film debut as director and co-writer of Stand and Deliver. The motion picture won six IFP Spirit Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay. The Warner Brothers production starred Edward James Olmos, who earned a Best Actor Oscar nomination, and featured Lou Diamond Phillips and Andy García. The popular film also received the Imagen Award, the Christopher Award and the Nosotros Golden Eagle Award. Menéndez also directed and co-scripted Hollywood Pictures' Money for Nothing, which starred John Cusack, Benicio del Toro, James Gandolfini, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Michael Madsen.For television, Menéndez directed and co-scripted the telefilm Gotta Kick it Up; for the Disney Channel, starring America Ferrara, Menéndez also directed The Bride; an episode for HBO's Tales from the Crypt, starring Terry O'Quinn, Kimberly Williams and Esai Morales. Menéndez worked again for HBO, directed Given the Heir, an episode of Perversions of Science, starring Yancy Butler.
As a feature screenwriter, Menéndez co-scripted Tortilla Soup, starring Hector Elizondo, Raquel Welch and Elizabeth Peña. The Samuel Goldwyn Films production was a 2002 Imagen Award Best Feature Film winner and an Alma Award nominee for Outstanding Screenplay.
Working in commercials, Menéndez directed national and regional spots for blue chip clients including Coca-Cola and AT&T. After film school, Menéndez covered the civil wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua for PBS Frontline and CBS News. This led to collaborating with Oliver Stone as First Assistant Director on the feature Salvador. A native of Cuba, Menéndez has a B.A. in Theater Arts from San Francisco State University. He holds a MFA from UCLA Film School. His firsts screenplay, Exiles, became a Samuel Goldwyn Award finalist and he was hired to assistant-teach a 16mm production course. Menéndez continued his film studies in the Directors Program at the American Film Institute.
