LATINO PUBLIC BROADCASTING ANNOUNCES LATEST FUNDING RECIPIENTS

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Los Angeles, CA (February 7, 2023) – Latino Public Broadcasting (LPB) today announced its latest  round of projects selected for funding. Included are two projects by the Current Issues Fund,  which supports films that explore contemporary social justice issues and have potential for civic  dialogue beyond broadcast. The remaining projects are supported by LPB’s Public Media Content Fund and Digital Media Fund.

“We’re pleased to be providing funding this year for both new filmmakers as well as some LPB  veterans,” said Sandie Viquez Pedlow, executive director of Latino Public Broadcasting. “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.”

The awardees are:

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 austerity’s  hidden agenda, from 1970s NYC to Detroit to Puerto Rico today, documenting communities that struggle to survive while challenging the terms of the debt and demanding accountability from  those who profit.

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 April day in 2021, young Latinos, led by community leader Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, enter  the Texas State Capitol and from the top of the Rotunda release 270,000 rose petals to  symbolize the 270,000 Latino Texans who turn 18 each year and are eligible to vote. This action  is but one of many as they organize to get out the 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/artist Juan Carlos Zaldivar, who is walking the dementia journey 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 female 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.

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; 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

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

Each year LPB invites independent filmmakers to submit proposals for R&D, 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. For more information, visit lpbp.org.

Photos (clockwise from top left): THE GAME PLAN; REMEMBERING TO FORGET (courtesy of Juan Carlos  Zaldivar); PAQUITO D’RIVERA: FROM CARNE & FRIJOL TO CARNEGIE HALL (credit: Ricardo Rios);  BORDER NOIR; BARTOLO; BATTLEGROUND TEXAS (credit: Alejandro Moreno-Alanis); ANNABEL, TIKTOK DANCER (courtesy of Lifeboat  Creative); THE PEOPLE VS. AUSTERITY (credit: Eli Jacobs-Fantauzzi/Defend Puerto Rico); STRETCH MARKS  (credit: Sarah Beth Morgan & Caresse Haaser).

 

About Us
Latino Public Broadcasting is the leader of the development, production, acquisition and distribution of non-commercial educational and cultural media that is representative of Latino people, or addresses issues of particular interest to Latino Americans. These programs are produced for dissemination to the public broadcasting stations and other public telecommunication entities. LPB provides a voice to the diverse Latino community on public media throughout the United States. Latino Public Broadcasting is a registered 501(c)(3), EIN: 95-4776447.
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