You’re invited to join NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) and The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) with presenting partners NALIP and SAG-AFTRA on Saturday, September 8th, 2018 for the annual NFMLA Film Festival InFocus: Latinx & Hispanic Cinema event. The event will be hosted at The Academy’s Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills.

This month’s festival presents a powerful lineup of local and international films by world-class emerging filmmakers from Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Spain, Colombia, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Argentina and the United States across three short film programs. The evening opens with a collection of stories that explore everything from time travel to forbidden love, being caught between two words, abusive work environments and the importance of community.

The evening continues with an eclectic mix of genres covering everything from whimsical experimentalism to dance, including a dark comedy about a man facing down bureaucracy, a uniquely complex drama about the loss of a child, and stories of children facing down incredible odds, whether during wartime or in an imagined post-apocalyptic future.

The night culminates with a dynamic and hard-hitting collection of films that include two world premieres, a comedy starring a Brazilian soap opera actor that both is and isn’t about its own production, new work by a returning NFMLA alum, a thoughtful drama about the quest for same-sex parenthood in Spain, and a meditation on what it means to come home, all concluding with a story of parental love that transcends even the darkest moments.

NFMLA and AMPAS have formed industry-wide alliances and partnerships to support this initiative.

The program is full of talented filmmakers, including multiple-award-winning directors, writers and producers whose films have been programmed and awarded across Europe, South America and in the United States, including at SXSW and Sundance.

The evening presents three world premieres; The Morphable Man, by Jonathan Ostos Yaber, an award-winning director who has been recognized by the Italian Animation Academy, Synopsis by Felipe Saleme and Lara Koer, which stars and is produced by Brazilian soap opera actor Gabriel Godoy, and Sra. Genovese, the newest film by NFMLA alumn Daniela Arguello, whose last film in the 2017 NFMLA program, 2500Km, was acquired by HBO and who gave a Ted Talk about her filmmaking last fall. Additionally, the event will be the Los Angeles premiere of Bailaora by Spanish Director Rubin Stein, who was names is one of the 10 Spanish Filmmakers on the Rise 2018 by Variety.

Doors will open to the public at 4 pm with a pre-reception for the first shorts program, and the night will include a pre-reception before each of the evening’s programs, where attendees can sip cocktails and mingle with industry professionals and festival selected filmmakers in the lounge. The event will conclude at 11:30 pm.

Tickets are available for $5 per program advanced purchase / $7 per program at the door and $15 for all-night access passes, which provide access to all three film programs with open bar throughout the entire event. NFMLA’s Monthly Film Festivals are presented throughout the year with support from Executive Circle Sponsors FilmLA, The Coca-Cola Company and HBO, Producers Circle Sponsors SAG-AFTRA, 21st Century Fox Global Inclusion, Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA | Golden Globes), LA County Arts Commission and LA City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA).