The Georgia Latino International Film Festival will come back to Atlanta Oct. 2-5.
This is the 14th annual iteration of the festival, which is the only curated Afro-Latino film festival in the Southeast, according to a press release. The festival is presented by the nonprofit Georgia Latino Film Alliance (GALFA).
“[The festival] is a great opportunity for [Latino] filmmakers, both here in Georgia and abroad, to be able to showcase their movies and their short films,” José Marquez, CEO and co-founder of GALFA, said.
This year’s opening night celebration will take place at the Fox Theatre.
“The Fox Theatre is thrilled to welcome the Georgia Latino International Film Festival for VIP Opening night,” Jamie Vosmeier, vice president of Sales & Marketing, said in the release. “This collaboration during Hispanic Heritage Month reflects our deep commitment to inclusivity and celebrating Atlanta’s diversity through the power of film TV and Entertainment.”
Marquez echoed Vosmeier’s sentiment and said that having the festival’s opening night at the Fox gives the festival more opportunities to grow.
“Every year, we wanted to make it bigger. We wanted to make it better. That’s what we’ve done,” he said. “This year, doing it at the Fox takes us to a whole other level of opportunity.”
Back when the festival began in 2011, 150 people came together at Georgia Public Broadcasting Studios to watch 12 films. This year, Marquez said the festival plans to showcase roughly 40 films, whittling that number down from 300 submissions. According to the festival website, it now attracts about 1,500 attendees.
The festival has not yet announced its full slate of films, but some of the selections and their trailers can be found on the festival website. The schedule of events can also be found online.
Marquez was able to share the names of a couple of guests the festival plans to honor, including Puerto Rican actor Ramón Rodríguez, titular star of the television series “Will Trent.” Marquez said the festival also plans to honor Puerto Rican actor Carlos Ponce, who has starred in many telenovelas over the years.
In addition to the festival, GALFA offers training and education targeted at those who want to be a part of the film industry. According to Marquez, the alliance plans to launch an initiative called Film Lab Georgia at this year’s festival, branching off from an incubator that originally started in New York City.
“It’s an amazing program,” Marquez said. “We’re really excited about this coming to Georgia and being hosted through the Georgia Latino Film Alliance.”
According to Marquez, one of the reasons for starting the film festival was to ensure that the Latino community found representation not just in front of the camera, but behind it as well. He also stressed the importance of all of the different communities within the Atlanta independent film scene coming together to support each other.
“It’s up to us. Marvel comes and Marvel goes. But the ones who stay are us,” Marquez said. “We need to invest in our communities, and make sure that each one of these communities is developing independent films. We need to make sure that people come and support film festivals like BronzeLens, and Atlanta Film [Festival], and all of those, because each one of them brings a particular piece of the puzzle of who Georgia is.”
Information about festival passes can be found on the festival website.
Update: this article has been updated with information about the festival schedule.