Monthly Film Festival

NewFilmmakers Los Angeles (NFMLA) hosts its February Monthly Film Festival and annual InFocus: Black Cinema program, along with a block of films from The Black TV & Film Collective 2021 Black Producers’ Fellowship, the Los Angeles premiere of writer-director Christian Rozier’s Apache Leap and a program of local and international music videos. The Festival is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

The day begins with Schooled: The BTFC Black Producers Fellowship 2021, a sampling of films from The Black TV & Film Collective Black’s inaugural Producer’s Fellowship. To amplify Black creative voices, provide an invaluable development opportunity for emerging professionals, and develop a pipeline of skilled Black producers primed for career advancement, The Black TV & Film Collective Black created the Producers Fellowship to provide six emerging producers with $25K production grants, in-kind support and critical mentorship as they develop and produce narrative short films inspired by the Black experience in America. This project is exclusively focused on producers because they create “make or break” opportunities for entertainment professionals in front of and behind the camera. Producers are lifetime job creators that impact diversity and inclusion with the projects they bring to the screen, and often have careers that end in the corporate boardrooms of the multinational corporations that create, distribute, and market content to the public in all forms.

Next, InFocus: Black Cinema Shorts presents a selection of films from emerging Black creators both in front of and behind the camera. The program explores joy, connection, community, grief, fear and love through stories that delve into mental health, poetry, professional recognition, collective power, and the mystery of what lies beyond.

The evening continues with the Los Angeles premiere of writer-director Christian Rozier’s debut feature film Apache Leap, the story of an Apache artist navigating challenges while racing a deadline to get a job, produced in collaboration with the community of San Carlos Apache Tribal Reservation.

The night concludes with Music Videos, a visually rich collection of storytelling through the music video medium that celebrates the relationship between film and music on the big screen, spanning a multitude of genres of both music and filmmaking.

NFMLA showcases films by filmmakers of all backgrounds throughout the year, across both our general and InFocus programming. All filmmakers are welcome and encouraged to submit their projects for consideration for upcoming NFMLA Festivals, regardless of the schedule for InFocus programming, which celebrates diversity, inclusion and region by spotlighting communities of filmmakers within our filmmaking community as part of our monthly program.