Simón Mesa Soto (Medellín, 1986) is a Colombian director and screenwriter. He studied Audiovisual Communication at the Universidad de Antioquia, where he also taught film editing, before moving to the UK to complete an MA in Filmmaking at the London Film School in 2014.

His graduation film Leidi won the Short Film Palme d’Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival and the Gold Hugo for Best Short at the 2015 Chicago International Film Festival. His next short, the Swedish-Colombian co-production Madre, was also selected for competition at Cannes in 2016.

His feature debut, Un poeta (2025), won the Special Jury Prize in the Un Certain Regard section at Cannes and the Horizontes Latinos Award at the San Sebastián Film Festival. It was also selected by the Colombian Academy as Colombia’s submission for the Academy Awards and the Goya Awards.