Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) recently announced its latest round of Latino-focused projects selected for financing.

Those chosen include two projects from the Current Issues Fund, which supports films that explore contemporary issues of social justice and have the potential for civic dialogue beyond broadcast, while the remaining projects are supported by the Public Media Content Fund and the LPB Digital Media Fund.

Sandie Viquez Pedlow, executive director of LPB, stated:

We’re pleased to be providing funding this year for both new filmmakers as well as some LPB  veterans.

Submissions to LPB, which annually invites independent filmmakers to submit proposals for support of R&D, production, and post-production, are reviewed by LPB and a group of public media professionals, including journalists, independent filmmakers, and executives from national organizations.

The winning projects

Current Issues Fund

Beyond Salinas 

Laura Pacheco (producer, director) and Jackie Mow (Producer, Director, DP)

Funding: Production

Can an undocumented high school kid with good grades realize his dream of succeeding in college? Or will the challenges that come with a lifetime of living in the shadows hold him back? Beyond Salinas follows Jose Anzaldo from age eight to 19 as he navigates homelessness, poverty, immigration status, and a global pandemic. Are these life skills enough to get him through college?

The People vs. Austerity/El Pueblo vs. La Austeridad 

Gretchen Hildebran (co-director, co-producer) and Vivian Vázquez Irizarry (co-director, producer, writer)

Funding: Production

Across Puerto Rico, fiscal control measures have circumvented democracy to impose austerity, an economic program that slashes essential public services to pay off dubious debts. Alongside activists and investigative journalists, filmmaker Vivian Vázquez Irizarry exposes the austerity’s hidden agenda — from 1970s NYC to Detroit to Puerto Rico today, this new film documenting communities that struggle to survive while challenging the terms of the debt and demanding accountability from those who profit off of it.

Public Media Content Fund

Bartolo 

Leandro Fabrizi Rios (director, writer, producer) and Neyda Martinez (producer)

Funding: Post-Production

Tucked into the rural coffee-growing mountainside of remote western Puerto Rico is the tiny hamlet of Bartolo. It is home to an isolated agricultural community of just 12 families, landless  and chronically impoverished, and longing for a new start following catastrophic climate events. The community seizes on a chance for a new beginning when a veteran organizer from out of town arrives with a radical new plan.

Battleground Texas 

Evy Galan (producer) and Hector Galan (director, producer)

Funding: Production

On a Spring day in April 2021, young Latinos, led by community leader Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez entered the Texas State Capitol and released 270,000 rose petals from the top of its rotunda to symbolize the 270,000 Latino Texans who turn 18 each year and are eligible to vote. The action is one of many they organize around getting out to vote for the upcoming 2024 Presidential election. The story of a changing state, Battleground Texas takes viewers inside the largest Latino voter registration mobilization in Texas history, led by a new generation on the frontlines of one of the most crucial battleground states that neither political party can ignore.

Border Noir 

Isaac Artenstein (producer) and Alejandro Meter (director)

Funding: Production

Border Noir is a cinematic journey along the U.S.–Mexico border featuring crime writers on both sides, working in a popular genre that reflects multiple and nuanced perspectives on  immigration, sexuality, national identity, and globalization, while embracing a search for authenticity and justice.

Paquito D’Rivera: From Carne y Frijol to Carnegie Hall 

Juan Mandelbaum (director, producer)

Funding: Post-Production

Paquito D’Rivera: From Carne y Frijol to Carnegie Hall tells the story of a superior clarinetist,  saxophone player, and composer who also happens to be a great entertainer. His is a quintessentially American story — the exiled Cuban immigrant who becomes a 14-time Grammy winner. Paquito is constantly exploring a wide variety of musical styles and collaborators, from pianist Chucho Valdés to cellist Yo-Yo Ma — always with his trademark blend of a razor-sharp musical mind, irreverent humor, and impeccable technique.

Remembering to Forget 

Juan Carlos Zaldívar (director)

Funding: Research & Development

Remembering to Forget follows filmmaker and artist Juan Carlos Zaldivar, who is experiencing the journey of dementia with his mother. Refusing to follow the typically harrowing “dementia journey,” Zaldívar brings his mother back home from a care facility, joining a movement of trailblazers from around the world aiming to finally turn the page on our outmoded, stigmatized methods of treatment.

The Game Plan 

Mylène Moreno (director, producer)

Funding: Production

The Game Plan is a feature-length documentary about women junior college student athletes leveraging their soccer skills, wit, and drive to launch their lives. These futbolistas of Orange  County’s Fullerton College are mostly low-income women of color, swimming against the tide and learning to manage adversity and juggle soccer balls, jobs, school, and their plans to get to the next level.

My Father’s Prison

Iván Simonovis (director)

Funding: Post-Production

The son of a Venezuelan political prisoner tells the story of his father’s imprisonment. As both family and country fall apart, the father plots a risky escape.

LPB is excited to announce this year’s newly funded projects that showcase the rich diversity of the #Latino experience at home and abroad!

More info on projects & filmmakers: https://t.co/LLYW9wamsq#LPBmedia #LatinoPublicBroadcasting pic.twitter.com/ffFhwdb4hp

— LPB (@LPBMedia) February 7, 2023

Digital Media Fund

Annabel, TikTok Dancer 

Ida Joglar (director) and Amity Hoffman (producer, co-writer)

Funding: Digital Media

Annabel Hernandez, a young woman with Down syndrome, shares her love of performing and her unique perspective on life. This short film is at once an intimate portrait and a creative  collaboration between the filmmakers and Annabel.

Flower of Anger 

Edwin Alexis Gomez (writer, director, producer) and Evelyn Angelica Martinez (producer)

Funding: Digital Media

In this surrealist drama, a spirit visits a flower shop in the Winter of 1999; and a mother reveals how her partner died while her son grapples with a secret of his own

Looking at Ourselves (w.t.) 

Lourdes Portillo (director, producer)

Funding: Digital Media

This creative documentary by award-winning filmmaker Lourdes Portillo is a journey through memory and time with performance artist Guillermo Gómez-Peña. The film explores what drives Gómez-Peña (and, by extension, other artists) to cross borders of all kinds, and how immigrant  artists specifically take on the challenge of moving forward in a new geographical, psychological,  and artistic space to create their legacy.

Stretch Marks 

Bree Nieves (director)

Funding: Digital Media

This film is a reflection on a woman’s bittersweet relationship with her mother, as she becomes a mother herself.

“This year’s awardees include acclaimed and award-winning filmmakers, such as Lourdes Portillo and Hector Galán, as well as first-time makers working in both film and digital. From New York to California, from Texas to Puerto Rico to Venezuela, these works offer an up-to-the-minute look  at the rich and complex breadth of the Latino experience from a uniquely Latino perspective,” added Viquez Pedlow.