Latino Filmmaker Panel from Macabre Faire Film Festival

Filmmaking Sucks

This week, we bring you the Latino Filmmaker panel from the Macabre Faire Film Festival. Hosted by Manny Serrano, and featuring filmmakers Edwin Pagan and Christian Moran, horror super-fan and actress Ines Peek also joined us for the talk.
UPDATE: there was a minute or two of overlapping audio on the original upload, it has been fixed, so if you want, you can re-download the fixed audio version.

While much of Hollywood is currently fighting for equality of female and black filmmakers, one of the most marginalized groups in American film today are Latino and Hispanic filmmakers. Making up less than 4% of characters in films in Hollywood, the Hispanic perspective on life is one that is not told very often, and is generally overlooked.

In an eye-opening panel, we discuss the hardships Latinos face growing up in America, and not seeing themselves and their identities portrayed truthfully in American cinema.

Edwin Pagan tells about how he started the website LatinHorror.com and how it has become a central hub for a community that he, and many others, did not the extent to which it existed before the website came to be. Christian Moran talks about his career, from writing faux-sequels to films when he was young and filming them with his siblings, to his new Proxies Of Fear film series which strives to give a platform to Latino and other minority filmmakers in New Jersey.

Bringing in more of a viewers perspective, Ines Peek lends her thoughts on her experiences watching horror films as a child and a teenager, and how it has fueled her love for the genre and film festivals today. She also describes how the lack of representation in films may bottle-necked the opportunities for her to follow her aspirations of becoming an actress, via the lack of roles available to audition for, to very minimal support from friends and family telling her that it was possible.

You can find Edwin Pagan and follow him at LatinHorror.com.

Follow Christian Moran on Facebook here: facebook.com/cmoran29/ and his new film Lets Play Dead Girl here: facebook.com/letsplaydeadgirl/

You can find Ines Peek on Facebook here: www.facebook.com/ines.kirchenko

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photos by David Ryzman of MoonriseMedia.com

“I became an actor to change the way I grew up. The way I grew up, I never saw myself on screen. I would look at the screen and think, ‘Well, there’s no way I can do it, because I’m not there.’ And it’s like as soon as you follow your dreams, you give other people the allowance to follow theirs. And for me, to look on younger girls and to say, ‘Well, Gina’s like me, maybe not necessarily the same skin color, maybe not necessarily the same background, but like that’s me. I’m not alone. I can do it too.’ ”

— Gina Rodriguez