Huffingtonpost.com

by Denise Soler Cox

 

I spent the last few days attending the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, UT. If you've never been, it is surreal. The town was bustling with filmmakers, actors, industry folks and film buffs all vying to see the selected films, make an appearance at parties and hobnob their way into new opportunities. The enthusiasm was palpable and contagious and I was excited to be a part of it!

As a first-time attendee, I was really curious and excited to experience firsthand what happened while festival veterans and newbies wait in line to get into a screening. Who would I meet? What would we talk about? Would I recognize anyone famous!?

As soon as we arrived in Park City, Henry Ansbacher, producing partner and co-creator of Project Enye (ñ), and I made a b-line to the first screening of Sundance's Documentary Shorts program. This was the category we would have been featured in, but unfortunately were not selected. (Next year!) Henry and I were dying to see what had been selected. More than 12,000 films were submitted this year and less than two percent were chosen.

While waiting in line, we met a New York transplant and festival veteran. After a fair amount of pleasantries, I found myself in an interesting conversation with her. She asked if I'd considered the fact that adding "Latina" to filmmaker might lessen the value that I bring to the table. She compared it to "female filmmaker" and even "first-time filmmaker."

As we talked some more, I learned she was a linguist by profession and while she acknowledged that there are many branches of the profession, what we were discussing was how certain words give things power or take that power away. In all honesty, I'd never thought about it like that.

By describing myself as a "first-time Latina filmmaker," was I buying into the notion of being good, but not that good? Was I conveying that somehow I fell short of the industry bar?

It was a mind-expanding conversation.

She said, "Why can't you just be a filmmaker? Why can't that be good enough? When do you stop being a Latina or female filmmaker and just be a filmmaker? Are these descriptors helping or hindering you? And more importantly, is there an implied lower standard or special standard baked into that which takes away your power?"

I was speechless -- a rare occurrence for those that know me. I stood there pondering these questions and deciding how I felt about them.

In this particular case, I'm torn. I believe we as Latinos haven't yet reached that threshold where "It doesn't matter how you're different, there's plenty of room at the top."

Sundance was further proof of this skewed inequity. While there were some Latinos in attendance and on the big screen, the representation was nowhere near what it should be considering Latinos are the fastest growing population in the United States.

In so many ways it feels like we've only just started pushing back at the inequities that we've seen year after year in our jobs, in the media, at school, in the world and most recently at the Oscars.

The following day, I attended a Latino Filmmakers event and I was honored to be among so many fellow Latino filmmakers, screenwriters, directors and industry folks who did what they had to do to get themselves to "that place" and pave the way for other filmmakers like myself. It was here that I realized the word Latina is a distinctive badge of honor.

While the conversation I had in line with that festival goer empowered me to see things from a different perspective, it reaffirmed my mission to hopefully be in a position one day to reach my hand back and help another fellow Latina(o) reach their sueños and metas.

I wholeheartedly embrace my Latina-ness and believe "Latina" is an empowering adjective that lays claim to a future where female Latinas will be more aptly represented both in front and behind the camera.

Until then, I will continue to proudly describe myself as a "Latina filmmaker" because I want the whole world to know, we're on the move and we're coming for our overdue slice of Hollywood.

 

Check this out on Huffingtonpost.com

Remezcla 

by Andrew S. Vargas

 

Attention all writers! Residencies for writers in 2016 are looking promising. Check out the list below for some options on where to get away and finally finish or start a project. These organizations are on your side.

American Library in Paris Visiting Fellowship

Found in 1920, the American Library is Paris is a private, non-profit English-language library. It’s fellowship program is open to writers worldwide. Fellows receive a stipend of US$5000 to assist with travel and housing costs. Applications close 12 February.

 

Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts

Residencies of between two and eight weeks each are offered year round by the Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts in Nebraska City. Open to writers, visual artists, and music composers worldwide, each resident receives accommodation, studio space, and a $100 per week stipent. Approximately 60 residencies are awarded per year. There are two deadlines each year: 1 March for residencies taking place between July and December, and 1 September for residencies between January and June.

 

Wallace Stegner House

Located in Eastend, Saskachewan (Canada), the Wallace Stegner House residency program accepts writers for stays from one week to up to eleven months. A rental fee of $250 is payable and includes all utilities. Applications should be submitted by 30 September, and writers and other artists from around the world are invited to apply.

 

Vermont Studio Center

It is the largest international artists’ and writers’ residency program in the United States. Each month the Center hosts over 50 writers and artists from across the country and around the world. There are fellowship application deadlines in 2016; 15 February, 15 June and 1 October.

 

Berton House Writers’ Retreat

Berton House is located in Dawson City, Yukon. Professional Canadian writers who have published at least one book and are established in any creative literary discipline (fiction, non-fiction, poetry, play/screenwriting, journalism) may apply for a three-month residency. Applications are expected to close in October.

 

Rocky Mountain National Park Artist-in-Residence Program

This program offers professional writers, as well as composers and visual and performing artists, the opportunity to ‘pursue their artistic discipline while being surrounded by the park’s inspiring landscape’. Selected artists stay in a historic cabin for two-week periods from June through September. Applications open on 1 October and close on 15 November.

 

Fine Arts Work Center

This is a unique residency for writers in the crucial early stages of their careers. Located in Provincetown, Massachusetts, the Work Center provides seven-month fellowships to twenty fellows each year in the form of living/work space and a modest monthly stipend. For residencies between 1 October 2017 and 30 April 2018, applications will close 1 December.

  

Writers Omi at Ledig House

Since it was founded in 1992 it has hosted hundreds of authors and translators, representing more than fifty countries, including Gary Shteyngart, Kiran Desai and Colum McCann. Ledig House located in Ghent, New York, two and a half hours from New York City and guests may select a residency of one week to two months. Applications close on 20 October.

 

Jentel Artist Residency Program 

Jentel is located on a 1000 acre working cattle ranch 20 miles southeast of Sheridan, Wyoming. It offers individuals a supportive environment in which to further their creative development. Applications for Summer/Fall Residencies close in January and applications for Winter/Spring Residencies closes on 15 September.

 

Hedgebrook Writers in Residence Program

This residency for women writers is located on Whidbey Island, about thirty-five miles northwest of Seattle. The program is open to all women writers, whether their work has been published yet or not. Applications open in June.

 

Wellstone Center in the Redwoods

The Wellstone Center offers four writing fellowships per year, as well as week-long writing residencies and an emerging writers residencies. The Center is located in the Santa Cruz Mountains in California, four miles for Pacific Ocean. The next fellowship application deadline is 6 May.

 

Check this out on aerogrammestudio.com

 

By Brent Lang and Ramin Setoodeh

 

Giordano Poloni for Variety

The Sundance film festival kicked off during a pivotal time in Hollywood, just as backlash over the lack of diversity among this year’s Oscars nominees led to calls to boycott the ceremony. Even in the mountains of Park City, Utah, the aftershocks could be felt.

Festival founder Robert Redford stressed Sundance’s devotion to different voices, and said of diversity: “It’s a word I operate from. … If you’re independent-minded, you’re going to do things different than the common form: That’s something we’re genuinely proud of — how we show diversity — because it’s tied to the fundamental word of ‘independent.’” But, Redford added, it’s up to artists, not the festival, to explore the theme. “We don’t take a position of advocacy.”

While mainstream Hollywood still struggles to hire black writers and directors, and few women helm big-budget films, Sundance has always been refreshingly diverse. This year’s festival was no different, and offered a glimpse of the faces the industry could welcome into the fold as Hollywood tries to push back against accusations that it’s still the land of white men.

One of the fiercest bidding wars erupted over “The Birth of a Nation,” with drama about Nat Turner, the leader of an 1831 slave rebellion, inspiring a standing ovation and big offers from the likes of Netflix and Sony. Fox Searchlight ultimately landed the film in a record-shattering $17.5 million pact — the richest deal in Sundance history.

 

“The Birth of a Nation” Variety.com

“The Birth of a Nation” also heralded the emergence of a major talent in Nate Parker, the director, writer, and star of the film. Studios will line up to work with Parker following the debut, but the film’s opening offers more than a shot at the A-list.  Its title evokes D.W. Griffith’s racist epic about the formation of the Ku Klux Klan, but in place of that idealized portrait of an old South, it exposes the true brutality of that chapter in history.

“The Birth of a Nation” wasn’t the only feature to engage with thorny issues. Time and again, the subject of race bubbled up at the mountainside festival in new and often subtle ways. Director Richard Tanne received a warm reception for “Southside With You,” which provides a “Before Sunset”-like reimagining of the 1989 first date between Barack Obama and Michelle Robinson.

“Morris From America,” a whimsical coming-of-age story about an African-American teenager (played by breakout newcomer Markees Christmas) who lives in Germany with his widower father (Craig Robinson), landed at A24, and was a reminder that not all stories about black protagonists need to be grim. Writer-director Chad Hartigan said it was important to him to show a different kind of parental bond in the film. “I hadn’t seen a father-and-son relationship like this all that often, and particularly between an African-American father and son,” he said.

On the nonfiction side, Spike Lee held a press tour for his documentary “Michael Jackson’s Journey From Motown to Off the Wall,” which will air on Showtime, and audiences enjoyed the premiere of “Maya Angelou: And Still I Rise,” a look at the civil rights activist and author.

But Sundance didn’t prove its commitment just to black stories. Nearly a third of films in this year’s U.S. drama competition were directed by women, a much higher proportion than the roughly 7% of major releases directed by women last year.

The theme of “girl power” was perhaps best exemplified by Kelly Reichardt’s drama “Certain Women,” which stars Michelle Williams, Kristen Stewart and Laura Dern. “I wish I could be right here, between those ears, whenever I’m with you,” Stewart told Reichardt as she presented her with Variety’s indie impact award at a party Jan. 24. “Your perspective is really unique.” And in an answer to the mostly male cast of “The Big Short,” Indian-American director Meera Menon debuted “Equity,” about a group of female investment bankers, which sold to Sony Pictures Classics.

 

“Morris from America” Variety.com

Actress Clea DuVall, on hand to premiere her feature film directorial debut, “The Intervention,” said she felt the situation was improving for women in film. “I have watched friends — female filmmakers who work their asses off to try to get movies made, and they never get made,” she said. “I feel like that’s changing. They’re making noise about the problem, and that is making a difference.” DuVall did her part, employing a female d.p., editor, composer and lots of other women on “The Intervention” in jobs historically dominated by men.

Diversity has always been a trademark of Sundance, but it remains challenging to translate success in Park City to a viable career in Hollywood. There are signs that some progress is being made. In 2013, Sundance proved to be a launching pad for the careers of Ryan Coogler and Michael B. Jordan with “Fruitvale Station,” who returned last winter with “Creed,” which has grossed $108 million at the domestic box office.

Some executives and producers at the festival predicted that the commercial success of films such as “Creed,” along with the popularity of recent female-driven works such as “Brooklyn” and “Sisters” — movies that stem from both the studio and the arthouse sides of the business — are breaking down barriers.

“You’re seeing a demand,” noted Eric Fleischman, whose Diablo Films was at Sundance with “Sleight” and “Carnage Park.” “Let’s feed the need, and people will respond.”

 

Check this out on Variety.com

#OscarsSoWhite. Oscars most definitely white.

The latest example comes from Tre’vell Anderson of The Los Angeles Times, who yesterday wrote a piece about how British actor Charlie Hunnam will play the lead role of Mexican-American Edgar Valdez Villarreal in “American Drug Lord.” Valdez Villarreal is the Texas-born drug smuggler who was extradited to the United States last year. Valdez Villarreal is known as “La Barbie” for his light skin, blonde hair and blue eyes. This is him:

 

LatinoRebels.com

This is Hunnam:

 

LatinoRebels.com

Because it is so hard to find a white Mexican-American actor in Southern California these days, right? But hey, this is Hollywood where things like this happen all the time.

 Check this out on LatinoRebels.com