José (1961) was born in Mexico City. He studied philosophy and communications at the Universidad Iberoamericana, and later film in Prague at FAMU. He worked as an apprentice at the animation studios Bratri V Triku (Brothers in Trick) where he directed his first professional film under the historical Czech brand, founded by Jiri Trnka.
He completed his education with a Fulbright Scholarship at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).
His films have been screened and awarded in major film festivals around the world: Annecy, Anima Mundi, Clairmont-Ferrand, Guadalajara, and others. He has received prizes at La Habana, Toronto, San Francisco, Mexico, Montreal, and Japan. His body of work is mentioned in the influential book “Animation, A World History” by Giannalberto Bendazzi. He has been nominated to the Ariel by the Mexican Academy of Scientific and Artistic Cinematographic Arts and received the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Grant / Fonca.
In 2010, he was named one of the “Academic Leaders of the World” by the Instituto Tecnológico de Estudios Superior de Monterrey, TEC. He has been a jury for the Mexican National Endowment for the Arts (FONCA), and a jury for the McLaren-Lambart Award of the Society of Animation Studies. He has served as chair of the Animation Department at Loyola Marymount University.
In 2019, José was appointed as Director of ACTI, the Academy of Thought and Imagination at Loyola Marymount University.
In 2021, he received Collegium’s “Visionary Award” for his leadership at ACTI, “and his embrace of the sacramental imagination, his attentiveness and ability to draw connections, the way he sees beauty in the world, and his desire to foster conversations that link spirituality, science, and the arts.”
In 2022, he was appointed as Special Advisor to the Provost at Loyola Marymount University.