Latino Public Broadcasting Reveals 2025 Funding Recipients

Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) has announced the slate of long and short-form projects selected for production funding in 2025. Each year, LPB invites independent filmmakers to submit proposals for production and post-production support. Submissions are reviewed by LPB and a group of public media professionals, including journalists, independent filmmakers, and executives from national organizations.

“We're pleased to announce the exciting roster of filmmakers and projects that LPB will be providing production funding for this year,” said LPB Executive Director Sandie Viquez Pedlow. “We're continuing our commitment to the arts with a new documentary on the trailblazing actor Ricardo Montalban, who spent his career challenging Hollywood's treatment of Latino talent; a film about the pioneering Chicano playwright Luis Valdez (Zoot Suit, La Bamba); and an examination of the intersection of art and disability by artist Reveca Torres. In Beyond Salinas, the filmmakers catch up ten years later with the young migrant farm worker who was the subject of their 2015 documentary East of Salinas, and Remembering to Forget provides a moving look at the filmmaker's journey caring for his mother with dementia. We can't wait to share this remarkable lineup of films with our audiences on PBS and online.”

The awardees are:

BROADCAST/STREAMING

Art and Disability Culture Documentary (Untitled)

Producer/Director: Reveca Torres

Through a tapestry of letters, journals, and art, Chicago-based artist Reveca Torres engages in a dialogue with three iconic artists who, like her, lived with disabilities: Frida Kahlo, Vincent Van Gogh, and Henri Matisse. Bridging time and space, Torres intertwines the lives and works of these great masters with the works of contemporary artists with disabilities. “The film will ask if art can be part of a REVOLUTION towards equality for people with disabilities,” says Torres. “What would it take for a future where societal and physical barriers for artists with disabilities are removed and disability art and culture are celebrated?”

The Ballad of Luis Valdez

Director: David Alvarado; Producers:  Lauren DeFilippo, Amanda Pollak, Everett Katigbak, David Alvarado

Since the 1960s, Luis Valdez has used the art of storytelling as a force for social justice. From his revolutionary theater performances alongside Cesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta in the 1960s to his pioneering Broadway play Zoot Suit to his blockbuster film La Bamba and beyond, Valdez is an artist who has not only embodied but redefined the Chicano experience in American culture. As his legendary theatrical company El Teatro Campesino approaches its 60th anniversary, this documentary offers a compelling exploration of the power of storytelling to change the world.

Beyond Salinas

Producer/Director: Laura Pacheco; Producer/Director/Cinematographer: Jackie Mow

In this follow-up to their 2015 documentary East of Salinas, the filmmakers return to the California strawberry fields to continue the story of Jose, the migrant farm child featured in their first film, as he realizes his dream of attending an elite college. But will failing grades send him back to the fields? Beyond Salinas tells the story of a bright and dedicated first-generation college student who, like many in his situation, struggles to close the gap between himself and many of his fellow students who have come to college far better prepared.

Remembering to Forget

Producer/Director: Juan Carlos Zaldivar

As he lovingly cares for his mother who is living with dementia, filmmaker/artist Juan Carlos Zaldivar renounces stigmatized ways of caregiving and sets out to galvanize a movement of strength-based care by focusing on the abilities that remain rather than what is lost. The film reshapes our perceptions of dementia by highlighting recent scientific research and introducing trailblazers in person-centered care, where individuals with challenged memory skills can maintain their dignity and caregivers can avoid burnout. Ultimately, the film is not just a documentary about dementia but a testament to the enduring power of love and a challenge to rethink the approach to a condition affecting millions of families.

Ricardo Montalban Biography (Untitled)

Writer/Director: Hugo Perez; Producer: Joel M. Gonzalez

Typecast as a ‘Latin Lover' at the beginning of his career in the 1940s, actor Ricardo Montalban was a trailblazer, BREAKING BARRIERS and challenging the stereotypical roles that were often the only roles available to Latino/a actors. This biographical documentary traces his life from his childhood in Mexico to his rise to stardom as an MGM studio player, his work on Broadway, and his later roles in TV and film. Throughout his long career, Montalban was a dedicated advocate for positive representation for Latinos and increased Latino presence both in front of and behind the camera. His activism paved the way for the current generation of Latinx actors who follow in his footsteps.

Schooling Elizabeth

Producer/Director: Juliane Dressner; Editor/Additional Cinematography: Marilena Marchetti

When a group of Elizabeth, New Jersey, public high school students meet Giovana, a college student, she convinces them that by working together, they can try to change the things they don't like about their schools, which feel more like prisons than places of nurturing and learning. With metal detectors, invasive searches by security guards, random drug testing, non-functioning bathrooms, too few counselors and more, the schools are desperately in need of reform. Schooling Elizabeth shows how the effort to change their schools also changed them.

West Side Familia

Producer/Director: Taylor Hosking

This new documentary follows the story of “West Side Familia,” a Puerto Rican-led motorcycle crew and community activist group founded in the 1970s  grappling with preserving their traditions and cultural identity in the hyper-gentrified neighborhood of Manhattan's Upper West Side. Once aligned with the Young Lords and Black Panthers, the group started with street cleaning initiatives and crime patrolling and created cultural spaces for Afro-Latin jazz, the burgeoning hip-hop movement, and graffiti artists. As what remains of their community is now threatened by displacement and the neighborhood's social bonds are weaker, the aging group struggles to maintain their political power and cultural memory.

Zenón

Producer/Director: Juan Carlos Davila; Producer/Co-Editor: Camila Rodriguez

Zenón is a documentary about the life of Carlos “Taso” Zenón, a Black-Indigenous Puerto Rican fisherman, leader, and revolutionary. President of the Fishermen Association of Vieques, Taso led the struggle against the U.S. military's occupation of his native Puerto Rico. Prohibited by the Navy from fishing in the sea, Taso led dozens of direct actions against the Navy's operations and is considered to be one of the most important figures in Puerto Rico's fight for independence.

DIGITAL

Far East LA

Producer/Director: Ruben Guevara III

This series of four documentary shorts traces the hidden history of Little Tokyo and Boyle Heights in Los Angeles through the arts, culture, and activism of Japanese American and Chicano/a/x residents.

La Lucha de Lucia (Lucia's Fight)

Producer/Director/Writer: Maria Sofia Hernandez; Producer: Luis Esteban Rodriguez

This short drama follows Lucía “La Guerrera,” a young Mexican wrestler from a storied lineage of Lucha Libre wrestlers, as she challenges her family's legacy of dirty fighting. Forging her own path as a técnica (a wrestler who abides by the rules), she ultimately risks everything to redefine her identity in the ring.

Mataron a Pedro (They Killed Pedro)

Producer/Director: Kristian Mercado; Executive Producer: Debbie Perez

In this short historical docudrama set in 1930s Puerto Rico, Harvard-educated lawyer Pedro Albizu Campos emerges as the fearless leader of a farmers' revolt against colonial oppression, enduring unimaginable sacrifices in his fight for justice and independence.

About Latino Public Broadcasting

Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) is the leader in the development, production, acquisition and distribution of film and digital cultural media that is representative of Latino people or addresses issues of particular interest to Latino Americans. These programs are produced for dissemination to public broadcasting stations and other public media entities. Providing a voice for the diverse Latino community throughout the United States, Latino Public Broadcasting is funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. LPB also produces the acclaimed PBS documentary series VOCES, exploring the rich diversity of the Latino experience. VOCES presents new and established filmmakers and brings their powerful and illuminating stories to a national audience — on TV, online and on the PBS app.

Between 2009 and 2024, LPB programs won over 135 awards, including three prestigious George Foster Peabody Awards as well as Emmys, Imagen Awards and the Sundance Film Festival Award for Best Director, Documentary. LPB has been the recipient of the Norman Lear Legacy Award and the NCLR Alma Award for Special Achievement – Year in Documentaries. Sandie Viquez Pedlow is executive director of LPB; Edward James Olmos is co-founder and chairman.

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