LALIFF and Netflix Join Forces on Latinx Inclusion Fellowship

The Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF) remains focused on its unwavering goal of pushing the voices of Latinx creators as far as possible in the film industry.

Now, the festival has announced its second annual LALIFF Inclusion Fellowship, which aims to champion underrepresented filmmakers within the Latino community, Deadline explained.

This year, and with the support of Netflix, LALIFF will be doubling the number of fellows for the second year of the program, expecting to award five visionary filmmakers who identify as indigenous Latino and five visionary filmmakers who identify as Afro-Latino.

“Last summer, LALIFF and Netflix united to uplift the Afro Latino voices within our filmmaking community with the goal of moving Latino representation forward. As we move on to the second year of this crucial work, we are proud to continue our Afro Latino-focused fellowship, while at the same time adding a brand new cohort to our work— Indigenous Latinos,” says Academy Award-nominated actor, founder of the Latino Film Institute and co-founder of LALIFF, Edward James Olmos.

As Deadline continues, the expansion of the LALIFF fellowship program is part of Netflix’s recently announced Creative Equity Fund, in which $100 million will be invested over the next five years in “a combination of external organizations with a strong track record of setting underrepresented communities up for success in the TV and film industries, as well as bespoke programs that will help the company to identify, train and provide job placement for up-and-coming talent globally.”

“We are blown away by the talent and films from the first year of the program. LALIFF does amazing work to support artists who have been historically underrepresented, and we are thrilled to partner with them on expanding the Fellowship to support Indigenous Latino filmmakers,” says Pete Corona, Director of Drama Series at Netflix.

For more information about the LALIFF Inclusion Fellowship, visit https://laliff.org/fellowship. The call for applications is open, and the deadline is October 14, 2021.

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