Trained lawyer and chartered accountant, Isabel Castro Martinez began her career as a teacher in the Ivory Coast. Then she worked in Italy as auditor and consultant in organisation and management. She joined the Council of Europe in 1997, firstly working in the Financial Control Department, then becoming Deputy Director of Internal Audit in 2001. In 2006, she joined Eurimages as Deputy Executive Director. In this role she was, in particular, responsible for the administrative and financial management of the Fund, as well as the distribution and exhibition support programs. She had also been running the Eurimages “Gender Equality” study group. In this role she had overseen the implementation of a gender data collection system, had organised analyses and published studies by the Fund, as well as drafting the Eurimages gender equality strategy for the European film industry.
Since leaving Eurimages at the beginning of 2017, Ms Castro has been actively working as a consultant and expert for cinematographic international co-productions financing. In these new functions, Ms Castro leads the Eurimages Study Group on “Simplification of the financial procedures for co-productions” aimed to harmonise, as far as possible, the financial documents required for applications for support by national funds in all European countries.
Ms Castro is a bureau member of the European Women’s Audiovisual Network (EWA Network).