Mexican-American Film and Television Festival

There are 40 million people of Mexican descent in the US, all hardworking industrious people who have contributed endlessly to this country. Astronauts, lawyers, teachers, nurses, doctors, accounts, builders, war heroes and people of every sort whose stories go untold, because a demeaning stereotypical narrative is chosen by Hollywood. Furthermore, for over 2000 years our artistic and brilliant people, Aztecs, Mayas, Toltecs, Spaniards, Africans and many other ethnicities who mixed in Mexico, have been the cultural center in this continent. Our culture and history is so rich, Mexico City has more museums than any city in the world. Our hard-working ingenious cousins in Mexico have led in the development of the film industry in Latin American for over 100 years. Hollywood has been notorious for erasing Mexican-Americans/Chicanx out of American life for over 100 years. Even stories where Mexican-Americans\ war heroes are featured e.g; “Hell To Eternity” (1960), Anglo-American actors have portrayed their bravery and never mentioned their Mexican heritage. The perception of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in the US is distorted and the media has played a large part in this. Largely portrayed in media through degrading stereotypes such as “bandidos” “criminals”, “the help”, “lazy”, “illegal invaders”, and “uneducated”. Recently, those in political power, including the former president, have legitimized these Mexican-American stereotypes into the American consciousness, with disastrous consequences see throughout the news. No other Latino group has endured such abuse. The UCLA Hollywood Diversity Report 2020 showed that the demographics of film screenplay writers are 89% white, 5.2% Black, 3.0% Asian, 0.7% Latino and director are 84% white, 5.5% Black, 3.4% Asian, 2.7 Latino. The USC Annenberg Inclusion Report 2021 reviewed 126 films and 180 series produced by Netflix in 2018 and 2019, showing great improvement in gender and racial equality with most minorities, with Latinos being one of the exceptions, as only 2.6% of all stories had a Latinx lead or co-lead, and similar low numbers behind the camera. Mexican-Americans are 12% of the US Population and close to 70% of all Latinos in America. Because Films & TV have tremendous impact in the narrative, perception and the reputation of our community, the Mexican-American Cultural Education Foundation (MACEF) a 501 (c) 3 non-profit, has chosen to promote positive content, as well as foster future Mexican-American filmmakers in order to truly change the narrative.