Diego Arjona

Diego Arjona (born July 31, 1978, in Algeciras, Spain) combines his work as a comedian and filmmaker with his work as an actor and scriptwriter. He began his first steps in acting at the Aula Municipal de Teatro of the FMC José Luis Cano in Algeciras, where he also began making small short films with classmates and other friends, including Te quiero and Psilicone Killer. Later, after finishing his studies in Magisterio, he moved to Madrid intending to study filmmaking, enrolling at the film and television school Septima Ars and obtaining, three years later, his diploma in film and television direction.

During those three years he made three short films. The first was Chanquete ha muerto, his first film-format short, which featured the special collaboration of Agustín González in what sadly turned out to be his last screen performance; the short won second prize at the Festival Internacional del Cortometrajes de San Roque (Cádiz). Alongside it he began shooting Ultimátum, of fantasy theme, based on a short story by the Algeciras author Ángel Gómez Rivero, which was a finalist at the short film competition of the Semana Internacional de Cine Fantástico y de Terror de Estepona (Málaga). To complete this stage, and as his final degree project, he shot Once upon a time... in Alcalá de Henares, a film paying homage to one of his favorite filmmakers, Sergio Leone.

Once his audiovisual studies were finished, Arjona undertook a new stage in comedy, specifically in stand up or monologue. His first show was titled ¡Vamos... digo yo! and was performed more than 100 times across Spain; he later expanded it under the name ¡Vamos... digo yo! Sin gluten y bajo en lactosa, winning first prize at the II Certamen de Monólogos de Santa Pola (Alicante) and the II Concurso de Monólogos de Madrid Club (Madrid). He returned to film with the short Acuérdate de mí, which won best fiction short at the Torrecastilnovo film festival. Besides taking part in El club del chiste alongside Anabel Alonso on Antena 3 TV, he made the absurd-humor shorts Exitus and its sequel Exitus 2-Albacete 0. In 2013 he began collaborating in the magazine ACCION Cine-Vídeo-Tele with a section on the cinema of the 1980s.