Jorge Gutierrez is the director & co-writer of the Golden Globe nominated and Guillermo Del Toro produced animated feature "The Book of Life" for 20th Century Fox, writer & director of the Emmy nominated "Son of Jaguar" VR short for Google and creator (with muse and Emmy winning wife Sandra Equihua) of the multiple Emmy winning animated series "El Tigre, The Adventures of Manny Rivera" for Nickelodeon.

Gutierrez attended the California Institute of the Arts for his BFA & MFA in Experimental Animation. During his time at school, he created the 3D short Carmelo that won the 2001 Student Emmy Award in animation and screened at various festivals around the world, including Cannes Film Festival in 2001. Gutierrez’s first Annie awards was brought by his passion project, El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera. The film received the Best TV Animated show & Best TV Character Design, and even one Emmy award in Best TV Character Design. In 2014, Gutierrez’s 3D computer-animated film The Book of Life also nominated for three Annie awards in Best Film, Best Director & Best Character Design and also received a Golden Globe nomination for Best Animated Feature Film.

He is currently writing and directing an epic fantasy series "Maya And The Three" for Netflix and signed a deal with them on October 2020 to write, direct and produce new animated films, series and interactive projects through his production company Mexopolis. He is very glad that he has chances to access a large high-quality content talent pool through NALIP. “Thanks to NALIP, I have met a lot of producers, writers and a lot of other people in the industry who not necessarily do animation but are also doing the public content that I want to make. I want to cast behind scenes as many producers and writers as I can that are Latinos, so NALIP is now where I would go. But before NALIP, I could not do that. I asked people around me for Latino talents, but barely got anything because no one has representation.”

Talking about the current phenomenon in the entertainment industry, Gutierrez believes the time is changing. “I first started my career in 1999 and what I have seen in the meetings are mostly white men. Now you can see people of color, you see Asian Americans, Latinos and literally people from everywhere representing in the room. They are still in junior positions, not the senior, studio heads or heads of development yet. But you are starting to see the changes shifting. You are also seeing the audiences react, not seeing themselves.”