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Last month, \u201cIn the Summers,\u201d a queer, Latinx coming-of-age tale about two sisters who spend their summers visiting their father in Las Cruces, N.M., won the U.S. grand jury prize in the dramatic competition at the 40th annual Sundance Film Festival. It was an impressive feat accomplished by a group of first-timers.<\/p>\n
The film is the feature debut of writer-director Alessandra Lacorazza Samudio, who also took home the directing award, becoming the first Latina in the festival\u2019s history to do so. \u201cIn the Summers\u201d also serves as the first acting vehicle for Ren\u00e9 P\u00e9rez Joglar, better known as Residente from Puerto Rican hip-hop group Calle 13. The \u201cAtr\u00e9vete-te-te\u201d singer portrays Vicente, the troubled patriarch of a fractured family.<\/p>\n
Similarly, the indie drama is the inaugural project for Luz Films, an L.A.-based upstart media company focusing on producing Latinx prestige pictures. The venture was launched in 2023 by co-CEOs Sergio Lira and Lynette Coll, along with chief financial officer Cristobal G\u00fcell.<\/p>\n
Lira and Coll say they set up their own shop because they wanted to ensure that films by Latinx creators actually get produced instead of being relegated to development purgatory.<\/p>\n
Fidel Martinez delves into the latest stories that capture the multitudes within the American Latinx community.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never wanted to be the Latino programming person, but the way the system works has put me in a position where if I don\u2019t fight for these projects, no one else will,\u201d said Lira. The Houston native previously worked in development at Amazon Studios, A24 and FilmNation Entertainment.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re taking the risk that other people are not willing to take,\u201d added Coll.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an assertion backed by the data. The Times has extensively reported on the dire state of Latinx representation in Hollywood. Most recently, USC\u2019s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative published a report that found that very little has changed over the last 16 years. Of the 1,600 top-grossing films made from 2007 to 2022, only 3.1% of \u201cproduced by\u201d credits went to Latinxs.<\/p>\n
Luz Films is hoping to make a dent in those numbers by financing and producing movies that pair known talent with up-and-coming filmmakers. In addition to P\u00e9rez Joglar, the cast of \u201cIn the Summers\u201d includes Leslie Grace (\u201cIn the Heights\u201d) and Sasha Calle (\u201cThe Flash\u201d).<\/p>\n
Coll, who began acting in her native Puerto Rico and built her development and producing chops working at Breaker Studios and GameChanger Films, says \u201cIn the Summers\u201d fell into their lap after she was approached by Nando Vila, head of studio at Exile Content, in late 2022. (Full disclosure: Vila and I worked together at Fusion, the now-defunct joint venture between Univision and ABC News.)<\/p>\n
For the record:<\/p>\n
3:03 p.m. March 4, 2024Alexander Dinelaris was a co-producer on \u201cThe Revenant,\u201d not its screenwriter, as an earlier version of this story said.<\/p>\n
Vila said the project had been brought to Exile Content by Alexander Dinelaris, the screenwriter of \u201cBirdman,\u201d who read Lacorazza Samudio\u2019s semiautobiographical script and agreed to produce it under his company, Lexicon. Dinelaris was also instrumental in bringing P\u00e9rez Joglar on board.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I met Lynette, I knew [Luz Films] were the perfect partner,\u201d said Vila. \u201cThey have incredible taste, great relationships and a ton of energy and passion to get these films off the ground, which is never easy. Any film that gets made is a small miracle. It being good is an even bigger miracle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coll took the script to Lira, who had already come across it while working at A24. \u201cIn the Summers\u201d hit the sweet spot of what Luz Films was looking for in a project. \u201cIt was the perfect movie to start a company with,\u201d said Coll. At the 2023 edition of Sundance, the duo told Vila that they were in.<\/p>\n
A year later, the film became the sleeper hit of the festival, earning rave reviews.<\/p>\n
\u201cComing-of-age dramas may be a dime a dozen at Sundance, but one this tender and truthful can make an entire subgenre feel shimmeringly new,\u201d wrote former Times critic Justin Chang.<\/p>\n
\u201cA film like this can easily slip through the cracks and for that reason we have chosen to shed light on this beautiful piece of cinema and we hope it finds the audience it so well deserves,\u201d read the citation by the competition\u2019s jury that declared \u201cIn the Summers\u201d the winner.<\/p>\n
Taking the top prize at Sundance with your first film is an impressive feat, a fact not lost on Lira and Coll. They\u2019re proud of their achievement, but they\u2019re not wasting much time resting on their laurels. For starters, \u201cIn the Summers\u201d still doesn\u2019t have a domestic distributor, and Luz Films is looking ahead at what comes next.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve been working away and building a volume of quality. We have three to five projects that will probably go into production by the end of the year,\u201d said Lira, who declined to give specifics about them.<\/p>\n
Lira and Coll are under no illusion that one film is going to change Hollywood\u2019s Latinx representation problem, though they feel confident that their collaborative approach can help move the needle.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s space for all of us,\u201d Coll said. \u201cIt\u2019s like this is a big wall that we\u2019re all moving, and we\u2019re moving it together.\u201d<\/p>\n
View this article at LA Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Their first movie won Sundance. For Luz Films, it\u2019s only the beginning: Last month, \u201cIn the Summers,\u201d a queer, Latinx coming-of-age tale about two sisters who spend their summers visiting their father in Las Cruces, N.M., won the U.S. grand jury prize in the dramatic competition at the 40th annual Sundance Film Festival. It was
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