Amazon Studios has signed agreements with two Latino industry organizations

The studio celebrated its collaborations with Latino Film Institute and LA Collab at a Latino Heritage & Culture event on Oct. 3 at Neuehouse.

Amazon Studios has announced agreements with the Latino Film Institute and LA Collab, two community organizations seeking to increase Latino representation in the entertainment business in the United States, right in the heart of Latino Heritage Month.

The studio will serve as the exclusive sponsor of the Edward James Olmos-founded LFI’s Youth Cinema Project Alumni Program for the current 2022-23 school year, as well as fund the first-ever YCP Fellowship, which will provide 15 aspiring film school students, aged 14 to 18, with the resources needed to make a team short film to bolster their school and scholarship applications.

Next year’s Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival will feature the short. YCP is a curriculum taught in classrooms from fourth through twelfth grades in low-income, under-resourced public schools in which students learn to make a film themselves, from concept to screen, over the course of the academic year. The Alumni Program has connected more than 300 YCP graduates to continued learning opportunities, including mentoring, internships, more advanced filmmaking programs, and help with college applications.

“After two decades of building the pipeline from our community into Hollywood, we are excited that Amazon Studios is supporting our work with the Youth Cinema Project,” Olmos said in a statement. Only together will we be able to create Hollywood’s multicultural future.”

LA Collab co-founder Ivette Rodríguez, Latasha Gillespie, LA Collab co-founder Beatriz Acevedo

With LA Collab, Amazon is assisting the nonprofit in the development of the networking tool LTX Match, which will assist Latinos at all levels of the entertainment business in finding jobs, mentorship, capital, and community.

“It is time to use the great technological innovation that exists today to help repair the broken bridge that exists between Hollywood and our Latino creative community,” LA Collab co-founder Beatriz Acevedo said in a statement. “With LTX Match, we hope to link our community with access so that we all have an equal chance to prosper in Hollywood.”

The two community organizations joined the studio at Neuehouse on Monday evening to celebrate Latino Heritage & Culture, an event sponsored by Olmos and Latasha Gillespie, worldwide head of DEIA for Amazon Studios, Freevee, and others.

As we strive to be a global entertainment destination, we acknowledge the power and importance of Latino audiences. In order to tell their rich and dynamic stories authentically, we need their skills and creative power both in front of and behind the camera,” Gillespie said in a statement. “Partnering with LFI and LA Collab is not a charitable endeavor, it is an equitable endeavor. It is our responsibility to remove barriers and open doors so everyone has the opportunity to thrive.”