In the midst of Latino Heritage Month, Amazon Studios has announced a partnership with the Latino Film Institute and LA Collab, two community organizations working to increase U.S. Latino representation in the entertainment industry.
For LFI, founded by Edward James Olmos, the studio will serve as the exclusive sponsor of its Youth Cinema Project Alumni Program for the current 2022-23 academic year and will also fund the first-ever YCP Fellowship, which The film will award 15 aspiring students of the school. Aged 14 to 18, the team needed resources to make a short film to bolster their school and scholarship applications. The short will be screened at LFI’s Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival next year. YCP is a curriculum held in 4th through 12th grade classrooms in low-income, under-resourced public schools in which students learn to make their own film, from concept to screen, over the course of the school year. The Alumni Program has connected more than 300 YCP graduates to continuing learning opportunities, including mentoring, internships, more advanced filmmaking programs and help with college applications.
“After two decades of building a pipeline from our community to Hollywood, we are excited that Amazon Studios is supporting our work with the Youth Cinema Project,” Olmos said in a statement. Only together can we create a multicultural future for Hollywood.
JC Oliveira / Amazon Studios
Along with LA Collab, Amazon is helping build LTX Match, a non-profit networking platform, to help Latinos at all levels find jobs, mentorship, capital and community within the entertainment industry.
“It’s time to showcase the incredible technological innovation that exists today to help mend the broken bridge between Hollywood and our Latino creative community,” LA Collab co-founder Beatriz Acevedo said in a statement. “With LTX Match, we want to connect our community with access to ensure we have equal opportunities to thrive in Hollywood.”
Two community organizations came to Newhouse Monday evening to celebrate Latino heritage and culture alongside the studio, an event hosted by Olmos and Latasha Gillespie, DEIA’s global head of Amazon Studios, Freevee and IMDb.
“As we strive to be a global entertainment destination, we recognize the power and importance of the Latino audience. To authentically tell their rich and moving stories, we need the camera’s presence,” Gillespie said in a statement. Their expertise and creative energy are needed both front and back.” “Partnering with LFI and LA Collab is not a charity effort, it’s a fair effort. It is our responsibility to remove barriers and open doors so that everyone has the opportunity to flourish.