Latin Reel Joins NewFilmmakers L.A For In Focus: Latinx And Hispanic Cinema With AMPAS

Latin Reel partners with NewFilmmakers Los Angeles, starting this year, during Hispanic Heritage Month as Community Collaborator for In Focus: Latinx and Hispanic Cinema with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).

This year's program is set for September 25-26 and will be held virtually. Powered by Seed&Spark. The InFocus: Latinx & Hispanic Cinema line-up consists of two shorts programs and a feature presentation of Varda Bar-Kar's documentary Fandango at the Wall. This event will include online screenings, filmmaker Q&A's and industry panels.

The 3 industry panels on Friday, September 25th, are listed below:

• Film Financing Featuring wiip and Banc of California - 3:00pm PT - 4:30pm PT: A conversation about the film financing process with Motion Picture Executive & Producer Luke Rodgers from wiip and Entertainment Finance Executive Adrian Ward from Banc of California's Entertainment Banking Division.
• Ryan Murphy Televisions' Half Initiative - 5:00pm PT - 6:30pm PT: A conversation about professional development opportunities in television with Program Director Shari Page at the Half Initiative, an entertainment industry diversity program established by Ryan Murphy and Ryan Murphy Television.
• Sundance Institute's Feature Film Program - 7:00pm PT - 8:30pm PT: A conversation about The Sundance Institute Feature Film Program with Deputy Director Ilyse McKimmie.

Saturday's festival will feature a powerful lineup of local and international films by world-class emerging filmmakers and stories from the U.S., Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Spain, Chile, and the Dominican Republic and presents three world premieres, Alberto Belli's After Life Vacation, Alyssa Toledo's Lift Off and Kate Romero's Chronology.

The day begins with Shorts Program #1: Figments, Fictions and Fantasies, a collection of films that play on narratives, both real and surreal, that we create for ourselves and the things that we choose to believe when confronted with uncertainty. Stories told in this block include a couple facing the choice of spending eternity together, a boy finding his own moral compass, a man using his childhood imagination to cope with a grim reality, a woman on a quest to regain her ability to dream, a college student orchestrating a fiction about his life for his visiting mother, a pair of trapeze artists whose trust is critically tested, and a young girl who escapes deportation by becoming a mermaid.

Next, the line-up continues with the West Coast premiere of director Varda Bar-Kar's Fandango at the Wall, the inspiring story of a son jarocho concert that takes place simultaneously on both sides of the US/Mexico border, and the talented musicians who made it happen.

The evening concludes with Shorts Program #2: Generational Echoes, a selection of narrative and documentary films centered on the relationships between generations and the meaningful effects that they have on one another. The program includes the story of a man visiting his deceased father's partner, a time traveling woman grappling with her younger and older selves, a group of millennials delving into the history of the El Mozote massacre, one woman's portrait of her father, parents facing the risks of traveling undocumented to see their daughter after an accident, a prehistoric family drama, and a young boy's relationship with a grandfather whose reality is starting to slip away from him.

For more information on the entire festival weekend, please visit: https://www.newfilmmakersla.com/events/