Inaugural Sundance Institute Latine program launched

Aug 2, 2022

The nonprofit Sundance Institute announced the launch of a new program, the Latine Fellowship and Collab Scholarship, created to have a meaningful impact on Latinx representation in independent media.

The program provides fellowships and scholarships to 11 emerging Latinx artists and offers professional development opportunities, virtual gatherings to connect with like-minded artists and Creator+ memberships to Sundance Collab, Sundance Institute’s digital learning space for artists from around the world.

“Latinx talent has always been present at the Sundance Institute but supporting these storytellers across disciplines in a single class of fellows or by providing them with a Sundance Collab scholarship is a way for us to deepen our ties to extraordinary artists telling valuable stories” said Carrie Lozano, director, documentary film & artist programs. “More importantly, this new program is a way for them to build on their craft, move forward with their current projects and build a community with other up-and-coming, diverse creators.”

“Over the years, we’ve seen incremental change in industry-wide representation for Latinx creatives. We’re thrilled to be partnering with the McArthur Foundation and Board members Lyn Lear and Cindy Horn in our commitment to continuing and expanding the work that’s needed for more substantive change.” said Michelle Satter, founding senior director, Artist Programs. “It is our hope that by creating opportunities with these two program strands, we can elevate Latinx representation with more visibility, access to resources and meaningful connection with each other, the industry and the larger Sundance ecosystem.”

The Sundance Institute Latine Fellowship will provide 6 emerging Latinx artists who have been previously supported by the Institute with a year-long multi-disciplinary fellowship experience beginning in August 2022, offering bespoke creative and tactical support along with unrestricted non-recoupable grants of $10,000.

The second component of the program is the Sundance Institute Latine Scholarship, designed for 5 early career Latinx artists with no prior engagement with Sundance Institute to receive a scholarship so they can attend a live online course on Sundance Collab. The scholarship recipients will get a Creator+ Sundance Collab membership for access to the Master Classes in the video library and to exclusive networking and community-building events on the platform. In addition to that, they will receive bespoke feedback on their projects and other opportunities to connect with the Sundance staff and artists.

The 2022 Latine Fellowship & Collab Scholarships were developed with leadership funding support from Lyn Lear and Cindy Horn, and additional support from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

The fellows selected for the 2022 Sundance Institute Latine Fellowship are:

Ashley Alvarez (writer) and Michael León (co-writer and director) with Crabs in a Barrel (U.S.A): When her talentless frenemy is anointed the “future of Latinx voices,” a struggling Latina writer sets out to sabotage the unearned opportunity. After failing to recruit her friends to join her crusade, she gets a lucky break when she learns her rival isn’t exactly who she says she is.

Luna X. Moya (director/producer/editor/DP) with What the Pier Gave Us (U.S.A): A visually poetic film about immigrants who fish at a New York City pier. In five vignettes, What the Pier Gave Us lyrically captures the seasonal changes of a pier in a year.

Marilyn Oliva (director/producer) with Chalate (U.S.A): A grandmother teaches her young granddaughter valuable life lessons while they make ends meet selling what they can in the small market of Chalatenango, El Salvador.

George Pérez (creator/writer) with Los Cubanos (U.S.A): Forced to flee Castro’s Cuba in 1980, a husband and wife make the gut-wrenching decision to abandon their daughter. Now, in a menacing and uncertain America, they’ll do anything to protect their other child; becoming drug traffickers and assassins, echoing the past they left behind.

Cat Rodríguez (divisor/performer) with Untitled Bikini Bodybuilding Project
(U.S.A): A hybrid theater and live-stream performance that uses a female bodybuilding competition as an allegory for questions about race, class, gender, and climate.

The artists selected for the 2022 Sundance Institute Latine Collab Scholarship are:

Shireen Alihaji (writer/director) with Blue Veil (U.S.A): In the wake of 9/11, a First-Gen Muslim teenager discovers her mother’s record collection and begins sampling. The songs reflect her parent’s migration stories (from Iran and Ecuador) to America, and serve as a roadmap to Amina’s identity. As music unlocks memories, Amina remembers who she is.

Erin Nene-Lee Ramirez (writer/director) with Love, as an Illusion (U.S.A) : In the heat of a New England summer, a young Dominican student finds himself stirring up the intimate dynamic between a reckless teenage couple as he spends his final days in the US, where he challenges the couples’ ideas of acceptance, intimacy and love.

Fabiano Mixo (writer/director) with A Home of My Own (U.S.A) : When an insomniac handyman comes across a train in the forest after a flood in town, he decides it’s time to build his own house.

Maggy Torres-Rodriguez (writer) with Cherries (U.S.A): Inner-city Miami knew the gang as The Cherries – sweet Latina vigilantes who protected teenage girls by keeping drugs off the streets… and butchering drug dealers if they had to. Ten years later, the retired Cherries are forced to reconvene in order to survive against the resurgence of old enemies.

Mathew Ramirez Warren (director/producer) with Weed Dreams (U.S.A): Black-owned businesses in Oakland, California try to break into the predominantly white legal Cannabis industry, through the nation’s first ever Cannabis Equity Program.