Features and short films will be shown online from May 5 to May 31.
Last summer's version of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival took place at the TCL Chinese Theater in Hollywood, this year — rather than scrap the event — organizers are forging ahead with an online edition amid a pandemic.
"We are living in unprecedented times and we must find unprecedented solutions to continue to support our Latino filmmakers and provide them with a platform to showcase their work," stated actor Edward James Olmos, who co-founded the festival in 1997.
The festival is launching LALIFF Connect, a portal that will show its 2020 program from May 5-31. Listed sponsors for the effort include Sony Pictures and the Writers Guild of America West.
The features in this year's program include The Last Rafter, from directors Carlos Rafael Betancourt and Oscar Ernesto Ortega; Paper Children, directed by Alexandra Codina; as well as This Is Cristina, directed by Gonzalo Maza and exec produced by Salma Hayek. Six short films will also be presented.
Additionally, the festival will show a retrospective of its 2019 program online for free, including the features Councilwoman, directed by Margo Guernsey, and I’ll See You Around by Daniel Fermin Pfeffer.
Rafael Agustín, the festival's executive director and writer on CW's Jane the Virgin, added: "LALIFF Connect is completely free to the public in order to support our community during the stay-at-home emergency order."
