The mitú x Walmart Filmmaker Mentorship Program is back for a second season and THR Correspondent and actress, Alycia Pascual-Peña ('Saved by the Bell') sat down with this season's filmmakers Manuel Villareal ('El Colibrí'), Kaila Gutierrez ('Nana Carmen'), Matthew Serrano ('Pick One') and Sofía Ayerdi ('Aguamadre') about the program. These aspiring Latino filmmakers were paired with mentors, actress Justina Machado and director Oz Rodriguez, who guided each filmmaker as they created, produced, and directed their films.
This THR Interview was filmed, produced, and directed by a predominately Latino crew.
This THR Interview was filmed, produced, and directed by a predominately Latino crew.
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00:00Could we please go down the line and have each of you guys share your cultural identity?
00:05Hmm. Well, I am a queer period first-generation Mexican American
00:10I'm Mexican American with roots in Guadalajara and Oaxaca proud first-generation
00:15Salvadorian American I'm
00:17Mexican with roots in Guerrero Mexico. I am proudly a first-gen American Dominicana from the Bronx and Afro-Latina
00:30You
00:42When was the first time you felt seen on screen it was on Disney XD called star versus the forces of evil
00:48His mom was white
00:49His dad is Latino and literally we like stood up and just started screaming and then for like the rest of the episode
00:55I like looked down at my hands. I could not stop shaking and I was like, wow
00:58So this is what it feels like. Oh my god. And like from that point on I was like
01:03Whoever I can help to have that same feeling like that is like one of my main goals as a filmmaker
01:09It wasn't until I was like older and I remember watching
01:13Dr. Strange like recently. Yeah, Xochitl Gomez on screen
01:16I like started crying because I was like, oh my gosh
01:19I was like the one of the first things you see in like this big like movie
01:22Yeah, like that meant a lot to me. I don't think I ever had that moment of like
01:26Watching something on TV and feeling seen just because I'm like, where are the queer Mexicans at? Yeah nowhere. I
01:33Would love to create that moment for other people. I would love to put
01:37Latinos in stuff like Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter, you know build that world. Why can't we exist there, too?
01:43I realize those moments throughout your childhood and throughout your life where you see someone on the screen and you feel connected with them
01:51and you just
01:53Feel that you can be them that you can that you are so much more than you can achieve so much more
01:58It is powerful. What were your abuelos or tias or tios watching that? You also took notos novelas?
02:08Oh my god, I hope you guys ever watch
02:17Like the first Spanish word
02:19I
02:21Power and specificity and being like wait, that's in my household
02:24but a lot of the experiences that I wrote in our mother or based on that and also based on
02:31My grandma's and my mom I grew up with a lot of woman in my family
02:36So just that love that they gave me and that in spite of the fights
02:40They might have or in spite of the passions both of them might experience at the end of the day
02:44It's family and you love them. No matter what. I don't necessarily always think about like tying culture into it
02:50I think just because I am it just naturally will always come out
02:55The idea of wanting to tell a story about my Nana was always kind of there and it's based off one of my fondest memories
03:02Well, everything that I make is inspired by my family is inspired very much by my aunt Olga my tia Olga
03:07She died when I was very very young and that left a really huge profound impact on me
03:12And so I thought about
03:14Okay, how can I tell a story about grief?
03:18My mom and my dad were a hundred percent
03:20Based off of my mom and dad and all that experience 100% based off of me
03:24It was really really exciting that I got to just unapologetically make the movie about being Salvadorian
03:30as Latina people in the entertainment industry, I'm like there shouldn't be stories about us without us and
03:36When you see that on screen it goes. Okay. I'm not alone
03:39I wanted to make sure that my dad got represented as a Salvadorian immigrant
03:45Yeah
03:45Problem is my actor Jose when he sent his first self tape in it was my mom that pointed out
03:51My mom was like kind of has the Chicano accent slipping in there
03:58We all brought family into this yeah, and you know, it wasn't planned they didn't tell us a specific set of things
04:05We had it to add to our script
04:06But just naturally because of how we grew up and because of our values, it's like we come with a package
04:19Speaking of family through this meet through Walmart don't make a mentorship program
04:23What did you guys learn from your mentors Justina Machado and Oz Rodriguez?
04:27I think the biggest thing from both of them was just having like someone to be like you got this
04:31And like we're here to support you and like don't let anything stop you because like you deserve to be here
04:37What's been really great about the program is that it's given us access to resources
04:41We got to meet with storyboard artists that gave us graphic designers for our posters
04:46There was a lot of things that they provided
04:48Including the money that they gave us to be able to make the films
04:51How has the meet the Walmart filmmaker mentorship program pushed your filmmaking dreams forward?
04:56I think just being told and like
04:59Appreciated that like we can enter these spaces have been like one of the biggest things
05:04Cuz you know like imposter syndrome is like a big thing
05:07Like you don't see too many like Latino faces in some of these spaces and especially in the film world
05:12But like going in and knowing like oh
05:14There's a whole community of people rooting for me and who want to help me and are helping each other
05:18I think that's like the biggest thing