U.S. HISPANIC
Latino Film Market: With the support of Spanglish Movies we seek to increase the visibility of Latino cinema
Maribel Ramos-Weiner| 5 de julio de 2023
Arilyn Martinez del Latino Film Market
The seventh edition of the Latino Film Market (LFM), held from June 12 to 18 in New York, concluded with 54 screenings, 47 shorts and seven feature films.
Arilyn I. Martínez Cora, founder and director of the LFM, says that she wanted to develop this market to offer a unified structure and support tools to Latino filmmakers.
“When I went to Brooklyn College, I saw that me and my classmates were making movies, but at the end we left them on hard drives and YouTube channels. Also, the classes were about making movies, but it wasn’t clear what came next. In college I was able to attend different events like Produced By and that’s when I learned about the commercial aspect of cinema. Then through organizations like Sundance, Post New York Alliance (PNYA) and others, I decided to write a blog about it and share it with my Latinx community, because when I attended I didn’t see anyone like me. This is how the Latino Film Market was born in 2016 and we joined in 2017,” said Martínez.
The 7th annual Latino Film Market focused on providing educational opportunities, creating direct tools for future Latino filmmakers as well as local and international industry professionals.
The LFM made an alliance with Gustavo Aparicio’s Spanglish Movies, who has given online workshops for members and this year gave face-to-face talks on finance, marketing and distribution.
“Gustavo has many years of experience in distribution. The filmmakers who attend the festival have already completed more than one project and wanted to understand how distribution works. Aparicio talked about the distribution, its channels, why the system is not working and what are the initiatives he has to make it work. The attendees loved it,” pointed out Martínez.
“I want to extend to Arilyn Martínez my genuine thanks for the opportunity to support the Latino Film Market. The passion and talent of all the filmmakers I worked with in New York is truly inspiring. I look forward to working closely with the Latino Film Market in the future and witnessing the future successes of its community of content creators in the world of cinema,” said Aparicio.
Martínez added that the alliance between Spanglish Movies and Latino Film Market aims to achieve “that Latino projects do not die on a USB or a drive, but rather have visibility. Perhaps at the beginning there is no revenue, but with more volume they will have visibility. Being able to get these contents on TV, on platforms and have the chance to be seen globally. Our intention is to develop the structure that we deserve as Latinos and we are developing those bases to unite and in several more years we will see a real and strengthened structure,” she pointed out.
