The Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival is launching an inclusion fellowship series to provide a pathway for filmmakers from the Latinx community with Netflix on board to sponsor its inaugural effort.
Each year, the fellowship will champion an underrepresented group from within the Latinx community with year one focusing on five filmmakers who identify as Afro Latino. LALIFF’s Inclusion Fellowship series will award a $20,000 grant to each of the five selected fellows for the production of a short that will premiere as part of a special program during LALIFF in 2021.
Each filmmaker will receive mentorship from an established filmmaker, one-on-one meetings with industry leaders and various networking opportunities. Netflix will also offer support to the selected group of fellows throughout the development of their films. Edward James Olmos, the co-founder of LALIFF and the Latino Film Institute, said, “For Latino representation in Hollywood to change, we need to create funding and distribution opportunities for our storytellers. The LALIFF Inclusion Fellowship is exactly that.”
Added Pete Corona, manager of Original Series at Netflix: “Discovering new voices behind the camera will lead to bringing fresh and diverse perspectives in front of the camera, and we can't wait to see what these new filmmakers will create.”