Peña grew up in New York City where he now lives with his wife and three children. Peña, the son of Spanish and Puerto Rican parents, was educated at Harvard University and earned a Master"s degree in film from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Harvard University.
Peña then taught at the University of California Berkeley before joining the Film Center at the Art Institute of Chicago as a film curator. In 1988, he joined the Film Society of Lincoln Center as the director of programming. At the Film Society, Richard Peña has organized retrospectives of Michelangelo Antonioni, Sacha Guitry, acclaimed Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami, Robert Aldrich, Wojciech Has, Youssef Chahine, Yasujiro Ozu, and most recently Amitabh Bachchan, as well as major film series devoted to African, Taiwanese, Polish, Hungarian, Arab, Cuban and Argentine cinema.
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, Peña was involved in the controversy over Abbas Kiarostami, who was refused a United States. immigration visa to attend the festival because of his Iranian roots.
Peña had personally invited Kiarostami to the festival but his visa application was rejected. From 2001 to 2002, Peña was the host on the Sundance Channel"s "Conversations in World Cinema, " on which he interviewed Harmony Korine among other leading filmmakers.
Since 1996, he has organized together with Unifrance Film the annual "Rendez-Vous with French Cinema Today" program He is also responsible for creating the annual New York Jewish Film Festival.
He will be honored at the 2013 Jerusalem Film Festival and will hold a discussion during the screening of The Gardener with Mohsen Makhmalbaf about the power of cinema.
