Diego Buñuel is a French-American producer, director, journalist, and media executive whose career connects filmmaking in the field with commissioning at Netflix, Canal+, and France Télévisions. Currently Director of Development at France Télévisions Studio, he works across fiction, documentary, and unscripted programming, bringing an international perspective to the development of stories for French audiences and beyond. His experience on both sides of the commissioning table gives him a perspective on the relationship between creative ambition and audience connection. Having worked as a reporter, filmmaker, presenter and commissioner, he brings firsthand knowledge of the creative process alongside an understanding of how projects find their place within a broadcaster or global platform.

At Netflix, as Director of Original Documentaries for EMEA, Buñuel helped establish the platform’s European documentary slate, commissioning films and series rooted in specific cultures with the potential to resonate internationally. His credits include Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, Room 2806, SanPa: Sins of the Savior, A Perfect Crime, GIMS, Alien Worlds and MOVE. Spanning investigative storytelling, contemporary history, music, science and dance, these projects reflect the breadth of his editorial interests and his experience developing documentary storytelling for global audiences.

Previously, as Director of Documentaries and Factual at Canal+, he championed films and series that brought the channel into the international documentary conversation. His commissions included The Staircase, Exodus, ISIS: Terror Studios, Pornocratie and Relève, with work recognised by the International Emmy Awards, the Peabody Awards, Tribeca and SXSW. He subsequently served as Head of Programming for France 2, France 3, France 4 and France 5, extending his editorial experience across genres and public service audiences. Buñuel began his career as a foreign correspondent, reporting from Afghanistan, Iraq, Colombia, Congo and Somalia, among other countries. He went on to produce, direct and present National Geographic’s Don’t Tell My Mother, an adventure documentary series filmed
in more than fifty countries over seven seasons. The series explored places often defined by conflict through encounters and stories that offered a different perspective.

This combination of field experience, filmmaking and commissioning remains central to his work: connecting the realities of making programmes with the editorial decisions that bring them to audiences. His career encompasses both the development of individual films and series and the shaping of programming slates. A graduate of Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, Buñuel works in French, English, and Spanish and has served on documentary juries at Sundance and Tribeca.