For this year’s festival, which kicks off Wednesday, August 22 through Sunday, August 26, Chinchilla continues to offer a platform for emerging Latino filmmakers. He told us of a young, Dominican filmmaker from the Bronx named Luis Santos, who Chinchilla says he and his team discovered on social media and commissioned him to shoot the official commercial for the 2018 New York Latino Film Festival.
“We found [Santos] on Instagram. There were a couple of directors that we were looking at, and this kid stuck out. He collaborated with us, worked with the crew, and shot the commercial,” Chinchilla told us, adding, “It’s crazy because we saw the trailer in full the other day, and to see this kid watching his own project moved me to tears, man. [Santos] spoke to me right after, and he said, ‘Film got me off the streets, and helped my mind escape from the streets.’ For me, moments like that make me stop and say to myself, ‘Okay, we’re doing the right thing.’”
As is customary for NYLFF, the festival will also host films produced overseas—from places like Ecuador, Venezuela and Colombia to the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico. Some films that Chinchilla told us about include La Familia, directed by Gustavo Rondón Córdova, which is about a boy who shoots someone, and his father has to run away with him to protect his son. Then, there’s Monger, a documentary by Jeff Zorrilla, which follows three men who partake in the world of sexual tourism in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Other films include The Sentence, directed by Rudy Valdez, which delves into the consequences of mass incarceration and mandatory minimum drug sentencing; Make Love Great Again, directed by Aaron Agrasanchez, a love story of a U.S. citizen and a Mexican who have to prove the verity of their love to highly suspicious federal agents. Also, on the festival’s opening night, director Abner Benaim will be premiering a documentary on Latin American icon, Rubén Blades, titled Ruben Blades Is Not My Name—for which the multi-talented Panamanian artist and activist will be in attendance.
When asked if the film festival has reached the initial goal he had in mind when he first ventured into it, Chinchilla affirms that it has, and he credits God and his New York state of mind for it.
“A lot of it is just God, really. Whatever plan God put into play, I would have never imagined it would be this,” Chinchilla reflected. “Things have happened that I didn’t think could happen ever. I’m a kid from the projects, man—and I’m still like that mentally. There are things that keep you grounded. That’s what keeps me focused, it keeps me grounded.”
For more info or to purchase tickets to some of the films screening at this year’s New York Latino Film Festival, visit nylatinofilmfestival.com.