Three recipients from California, New Mexico and Texas will receive $10,000 each
The selected three recipients of the Mexican-American Cultural Education Foundation (MACEF) of the MACEF Film and Television Grants were announced today by Dr. Jose Luis Ruiz who heads the two-year non-profit organization. He founded the organization after years because of seeing Mexican Americans/Chicanos represented in media in, for the most part stereotypical roles. The MACEF Film and Television Grants were created in order to support culturally positive movie and television projects in advanced stages of pre-production or production.
The three recipients are Frank Velásquez of Placitas, New Mexico, P. Antonio Márquez of Los Angeles, California, and Sharon Arteaga of Austin, Texas. They were selected from a list of 80 submissions that came in from throughout the United States. Each will receive $10,000 to help finish their short films. The grants will officially be presented at a special reception on August 5 by Dr. Ruiz, producer Moctesuma Esparza (Selena) and Emmy-award winning journalist Naibe Reynoso, both advisory board members of MACEF and part of the selection committee.
“After 100 years of Hollywood deleting Mexican-Americans from American society, like we didn’t exist, MACEF is supporting these Mexican-American filmmakers who are working hard to improve the narrative that will change the Hollywood of tomorrow,” says MACEF President and Founder Dr. Jose Luis Ruiz. “These talented and visionary filmmakers will be the ones contributing to a more accurate, fair, diverse and rich portrayal of our people in movies and TV. They need to be empowered to tell their stories, our stories. We at MACEF, with contributions from community organizations and individuals, are putting our money where our mouth is.”
The Filmmaker and Television Grant is part of the two-year-old organization’s initiatives to educate the community about the real history and contributions of the Mexican-American culture and people to the U.S. The projects were selected based on the strength of the script, the production value and viability. To qualify, projects needed to include at least one producer, writer, director or lead actor who identifies as Mexican-American or Chicano. Additionally, the judges looked for culturally positive and non-stereotypical projects.
Velásquez’ selected short film, Borders is about a humble but somewhat jaded Mexican-American war veteran and his social worker who enlighten each other with their stories, art, work and different life experiences. “Winning the grant means so much to me,” Velásquez said. “But more than the money, years from now, I’ll remember this as the first time I was validated as a writer/director by my own community in a major way.”
“I understand that being a filmmaker at this stage means having to apply and be rejected countless times,” Velasquez further explained. “But being a Mexican-American filmmaker means having to receive tons of problematic feedback along with those rejections, constantly wondering if I have to tone down my ‘Mexicaness’ to finally break through finalist rounds.”
Márquez’s ¡Baca the Kid! is based on the true story of a young New Mexican deputy sheriff from the late 1800s named Elfego Baca, who stood up to a mob of Anglo cowboys in a 33-hour-long siege. That shootout is known as the “longest gunfight in U.S. history,” according to the filmmaker.
“It feels tremendous to have donors and MACEF believe in my vision for this short film,” says Márquez. “I’ve wanted to tell a story about the New Mexican folk hero Elfego Baca since I was in high school and it feels surreal to finally be able to tell it.” He adds, “This is the ‘make it or break it’ base budget that I needed to get this film off the ground It feels great to have the support of MACEF to tell a story of empowerment about the Mexican-American people of New Mexico.”
The third grantee’s project is an 18-minute family adventure dramedy. In Arteaga’s In Tow, a mother and daughter wake up one day finding their mobile home is being repossessed with them still inside. Estranged with one another, the two women argue inside the rolling house and have to rethink their priorities and the meaning of home. “It’s always a challenge to find that first person or entity that takes a chance on you as a filmmaker, regardless of how much work you’ve done,” says Arteaga. In Tow will be the Austin filmmaker’s fourth film.
The MACEF Filmmaker and Television Grants sponsors, who contributed $10K each, are Southern California entrepreneurs Dr. Malena Rodriguez, DDS and Gilbert Vazquez, CPA, and the Eastside Art Initiative of the LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, a cultural nonprofit organization in Los Angeles.
All winning projects will premiere at the first annual MACEF Mexican-American Film & Television Festival to be held on May 15 and 16, 2022 at the historic Raleigh Studios in the heart of Hollywood.
MACEF also supports a Filmmaker Scholarship initiative for students pursuing a master’s degrees at two prestigious Southern California schools, the University of California Los Angeles’ School of Theater, Film and Television and the American Film Institute Conservatory. The winners of this program, also in its inaugural year, are UCLA students Natalia Delgado, Seth Van Matre and Sonia Gonzalez, and AFI Conservatory’s Ahuatl “Jorge” Amaro and Reuben Tietz.
For more information about MACEF and its filmmaker grant, scholarship program and other initiatives, visit https://www.mexicanamericancef.org