Isabel Herguera, born in San Sebastian in 1961, is a Spanish animation filmmaker with a rich international background. She pursued Fine Arts at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf in Germany and specialized in Animation at the renowned California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).

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From 1990 to 2003, Herguera lived in Los Angeles, where she worked as an animator for Acme Filmworks, Klasky Szupo, and for directors such as Maureen Selwood, Raimund Krumme, Sue Laughlin, and Paul Vester. Isabel worked on music videos like All Around the World by Oasis (1997) and Sting’s interactive CD-ROM All This Time (1996).

In 1996, she founded Loko Pictures, an animation studio that produced and directed work for clients such as Philip Morris, FOX, Procter and Gamble, and HBO.

In 2003, she returned to Europe and was the Festival Director of Animac, the International Animated Film Festival of Catalonia, and coordinated the moving image laboratory at Arteleku in San Sebastian. During these years, she made several short films such as La gallina ciega (2005), Ámár (2010), Bajo la Almohada (2012), Amore d’inverno (2014), Kutxa beltza (2016), and produced Berbaoc (2007) and Sailor’s Grave (2014).

Today, Isabel is a professor of experimental animation at the Academy of Media Arts in Cologne and the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, India (since 2005) and a visiting professor at the China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing (since 2012).

Sultana’s Dream (El sueñ0 de la sultana, 2023) is Isabel’s first full-length film. Her artistic path is based on creating connections between Spain and the world and promoting collaboration between local and global actors.