The photo above is of Prof. John Ramirez (Director of Reel Rasquache Film Festival), yours truly and Filmmaker Cristina Soto.

Once again, I had the great fortune of attending a filmmaking event that highlighted the diverse Latino culture. Last nights schedule included High Voltige and Muñeca from Puerto Rican filmmaker Christina Soto as well as Niña Quebrada/Broken Girl, a powerful thesis project from AFI students, Jen Kleiner & Diana Romero.

The Reel Rasquache Festival takes place on the Calstate LA campus. I had never been to the campus and found the Luckman Fine Arts complex intimate and impressive. It kind of reminded me of Lehman College in the Bronx an, unexpected gem in a forgotten borough…The Calstate campus is smackdab in the middle of EasLos and serves more than 22,000 students, 53% are Latino.

The Festival was designed as an East meets West project of sorts. They have successfully managed to involve the University’s neighboring communities and to bring a broad base of community members together with Latino independent video filmmaker and industry reps.