Born in: Colombia

theOscarSite Bio: Isabel Vega moved to the US from Colombia as a child and now lives in Los Angeles. LA CORONA chronicles a beauty pageant in a Colombian women's prison. Vega discovered the event while researching other beauty pageants. "I immediately said, 'This is a good one -- this is an interesting one,'" Vega said. She knew that to get broad coverage of the pageant and all that happens in the prison, she would need more than one camera running, but she couldn't think of any documentary filmmaker she knew who spoke Spanish. Vega had worked with Amanda Micheli on "30 Days", THIN, and "Too Hot to Handle", among others. "It's too bad you don't speak Spanish," she told Micheli one day, who promptly replied, "¡Si, hablo español!" "We had spent on and off six months together in an eating disorder facility," shooting THIN, Micheli recalled, "and that seemed like a good test of whether we could work together."

· Achievement in Documentary Short Subjects 2007: LA CORONA (THE CROWN) (w. Amanda Micheli)