International Latino Film Society, Inc.

Programs: Our crown jewel is our International Latino Film Festival. In it?s 11th year this festival has grown organically to meet the needs of the Bay Area. We have this distinction as a result of our desire to meet our communities? needs. We currently have three weeks with an average of 80 films that show in San Francisco, San Jose, Redwood City, Berkeley, and Marin. All these cities and counties that have seen a growth in the Latino population and without our presences that have no access to positive Latino images in their local movie screens. The Festival is often their first exposure to ILFS. Based upon repeated requests by both our supporters and other community groups we have created Cine365. This program allows us to screen our films year round a variety of non-commercial community venues, and educational facilities. This also allows filmmakers whose films do not have commercial distribution to be shown to great success and acclaim. Fact is that our films are to often considered un-commercial, unusual, and under-needed. We find that all of these stereotypes and assumptions are not true. The attendance at Cine365 proves otherwise. Our educational program is two fold, Youth in Video (YIV) and The Latino Filmmakers Conference (LFC). Starting with YIV that has for the last ten years sought to engage Latino and non-Latino youth in documenting through film and video our communities culture. This has given youth the opportunity to learn technical research, and storytelling techniques essential to filmmaking. In the process they also learn responsibility, follow through and the value of our cultures. Our alumni of this program don?t all necessarily go on to be filmmakers but they do become empowered community members that can speak to and about our cultural needs. They also become critical viewers of media, and media images.