The Latino Media Fest is proud to announce this year's Official Selection films and directors who will be showcased at the 2018 Latino Media Fest, Wednesday, October 3rd and Thursday, October 4th.
Dennis Likes Olivia
DENNIS, 14, is a social recluse who can’t connect emotionally and fears he may be a psychopath. He suppresses his morbid fantasies and writes stories centered around them instead. He meets OLIVIA, 16, when she moves in next door with her hostile aunt. Olivia is alluring but emotionally unstable. She makes Dennis feel human, but manipulates his macabre urges to free her from her abusive environment.
Directed by:
Jorge Ramos
Red Paint
Freya wakes up alone in the desert confused and separated from her significant other. She searches for answers in an unreliable reality.
Directed by:
Andrew Rodriquez
Green
An undocumented Turkish pedicab driver unwittingly draws police attention, endangering his brother, his community, and himself.
Directed by:
Suzanne Andrews Correa
Molt
The summer sun sets in rural Appalachia as twelve year old Cadie and her neighbor, Sarah, redefine their friendship in the eve of burgeoning sexuality.
Directed by:
Nathalie Alvarez
Minstrel VS Puppet
Minstrel vs. Puppet (MVP) short film is an artistic experimental piece that illustrates the internal conflict many women, particularly women of color, experience surrounding the topics of brains and beauty. It also depicts how this same conflict manifests externally with some women identifying with and relating more to their own internal level of intellect while others identify with and relate more to their external degree of beauty. It draws upon multiple societal factors that influence these notions, sentiments, and characterizations within women today. This short film is rooted in spoken word poetry, as it was written in poetic form and performed with elements of spoken word.
Directed by:
Marcus Aubin
Abuela's Luck
A young man’s relationship with his grandmother is altered forever after a chance visit to his neighborhood Dominican bodega.
Directed by:
Ricky Rosario
El Astronauta
Beto, a sophisticated man, returns to his remote hometown with the goal of bringing his senile father to a care home in the city. But his father, Don Alfredo, does not want to leave home until he fulfills his only desire: to reach the moon to say goodbye to his beloved and late wife. With great difficulty to understand his father's desire, but touched with the ingenuity, Beto must find the way to become “The Astronaut”.
Directed by:
Manuel Trotta
The Velvet Underground Played at My High School
Directed by:
Robert Pietri
Anthony Jannelli
Wednesday, October 3rd at 6:00pm.
Check Out Official Selection Filmmakers Program Two!
During the ATX Television Festival, Mayans M.C. creator Kurt Sutter said that the new FX series will not be a Latino version of Sons of Anarchy. The two may be part of the same leather-clad and ruthless motorcycle-centric universe, but JD Pardo, the star of the series, echoes Sutter’s thoughts and shared why his philosophies about the show bleed into his feelings about Hollywood’s push for diversity.
The director behind almost half of Amazon's action drama can't wait for her next challenge, and can't be stopped.
A leading advocate in inclusion in the industry, NALIP is providing more resources to aspiring filmmakers every year with events such as the NALIP Media Summit, the Latino Media Fest, and the Diverse Women in Media Forum, and events such as the Latino Lens Workshops and the Latino Lens Incubator Shorts.
Check Out Fresh News From August 30, 2018.
Many of us who are obsessed with movies know about the Criterion Collection – we may even own a number of their DVDs, Blu-Rays or box sets if we’re lucky enough to afford them. However, a glance through their titles will reveal a lack of love for Latin American cinema. There are only a small handful of titles like Lucrecia Martel’s La Cienega and Guillermo del Toro’s Cronos represented in the dozens of titles from Europe or Asia and slim offerings from Africa.
For years media has not accurately depicted the reality of the world we live in, but the push for diversity has slowly but surely manifested in the popular shows of the young adult generation. Take Grown-ish, On My Block, and Riverdale, these wildly popular and beautifully diverse shows have become a television favorite. Not only do they depict compelling stories but they reflect their audience with characters from different ethnic backgrounds and therefore different experiences.