Official Latino Short Film Festival

SUBMISSIONS OPEN FEBRUARY 9th 2019.

The 5th Annual Official Latino Short Film Festival will take place again in the city of Coachella, California during Hispanic Heritage Month. This year dates are October 11-15, 2019.

Filmmaker Danny Hastings www.dannyhastings.com created the Festival in 2015 in response to the lack of Latino representation in Hollywood films and TV shows. Our mission is to showcase, nurture, and support the emerging creative Latino and Latina filmmaker that produces, directs or writes their films and videos in the United States. We also support films and filmmakers that showcase our true American Diversity in their films, so we accept Non-Latino Films that showcase Diversity - Black, White, Asian, Gay, All - You are all invited to submit. Read below for more details.

This year we are going to highlight our Native Indigenous Spirit, by showcasing films about Natives from this continent. Read below for more details.

Official Latino Film and Arts Festival is a different type of Film Festival. We showcase Semi-final films in 4 different markets before we go to the finals in Coachella. We will have Semi-Final screening in New York, Atlanta, San Antonio and Los Angeles. Our Finals and Gala Event will take place in Coachella, California.

This year's theme is "Stereotypes End Here". For many years Latinx Filmmakers and Filmmakers of Color have been writing, directing, producing short films here in the U.S.A., and for whatever reason we still struggle to get any type of proper representation. Our actors usually get the one or two lines and most of them just get the supporting roles to the supporting actors in a film. We wait no longer for "the powers that be" to tell our stories.

We want to see the Female Hero, The Latina Doctor, The Latino Family Man, African American Excellence, Native American Stories. We are tired of Stereotypes, it's 2019 are we are not having that non-sense any longer. We want to see films that change the narrative.

At the Official Latino Film and Arts Festival we focus on inclusivity and diversity, we bring that awareness as we celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month with our brothers and sisters of cinema from all different backgrounds.

Another big important detail is that we take films that have been produced from January 1, 2017 to July 2019. So if you have a film that started collecting dust, for a year or two, send it our way, it might have a chance to still get in.