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Exclusive: The Latino Film Institute has announced the lineup for the 24th edition of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (Laliff), from May 28 through June 1, 2025, at the Tcl Chinese Theatres. This year’s festival will feature the return of the Laliff Eastside programming at Regal L.A. Live, the Laliff Film Market, and an expanded Laliff Industry Forum.

The festival will open with Asco: Without Permission, written and directed by Travis Gutiérrez Senger, executive produced by Gael García Bernal and Diego Luna, and featuring special appearances by Zoe Saldaña and Michael Peña. Laliff will close with Serious People, co-written and co-directed by Pasqual Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson, which is being shown for the first time on the West Coast.

Asco: Without Permission is a film that tells the story of the pioneering Chicano art collective Asco, whose activism and artistic vision challenged mainstream representation in the art world,...

Serious People is a playful and absurd comedy-drama that dips its toes into surrealism, all while rooted in the messy, relatable struggles of modern life. At its heart is Pasqual, a music video director caught in a dilemma that feels almost too real for comfort: how does one juggle an impending career-making project with the impending arrival of their first child?

The answer, of course, is a convoluted, wildly inventive one—he hires a doppelgänger to take his place on set during a shoot for none other than Drake. It’s a scenario that blends absurdity with sharp social commentary, as Pasqual tries to manage both his career ambitions and his personal responsibilities, all the while watching his carefully crafted plans unravel around him.

The film’s narrative structure keeps you on your toes, playing with the conventions of workplace comedy and family drama, yet never fully committing to one genre or another.

Exclusive: UTA has signed Pasqual Gutierrez, one of the filmmakers behind Sundance 2025’s Serious People, for representation in all areas.

Directed by Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson, Serious People is an experimental comedy following a music video director who, in anticipation of his first child’s arrival, hires a lookalike to take over his professional responsibilities. As the impersonation unfolds, the boundaries between his work and personal life blur in unexpected ways. Gutierrez wrote the script and stars alongside his wife, Christine Yuan.

Beyond his work in narrative filmmaking, as one half of directing duo Cliqua, alongside Rj Sanchez, Gutierrez has helmed numerous music videos for some of the biggest names in the industry, including The Weeknd, Bad Bunny, Rosalía, Travis Scott and J Balvin. Notable music videos from the filmmaker include The Weeknd’s “Save Your Tears,” “Out of Time,” and “Take My Breath”; Bad Bunny’s “Bichiyal” (alongside Yaviah), “La difícil,...

Directing music videos is easy. All you have to do is sit there, act confident, and never let on that you have no idea what you’re doing. The client is most likely an idiot; tell them the end result will be “cinematic” and they usually shut up. And if someone really starts to press, say that you’ll “have to check with your producer.” That will buy you some time.

This is the advice that Pasqual (Pasqual Gutierrez) gives to the doppelgänger he hires to take his place on the set of a big artist’s “return to form” in Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson’s playful docu-fiction hybrid “Serious People.” Doubles, and the idea of being replaced by one, are often the stuff of horror in the movies. Here, being replaceable is a relief, as Pasqual struggles to balance his career as half of a successful directing duo with the demands of impending parenthood.

In Serious People, a music video director hires a doppelganger to take his place at work after he learns that his wife is pregnant. The film, co-directed by Pasqual Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson, is inspired by Gutierrez’s own expectant fatherhood and is a 2025 Sundance Film Festival Next selection. Neema Sadeghi (Noel Miller: Stop Crying) and Nicholas Bupp served as co-cinematographers. Below, they talk about working without a crew and contrasting a calm visual style with a mounting sense of narrative tension. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being […]

The post “Forgetting the Camera Was Rolling, It Hit Me”: DPs Neema Sadeghi & Nicholas Bupp on Serious People first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

In Serious People, a music video director hires a doppelganger to take his place at work after he learns that his wife is pregnant. The film, co-directed by Pasqual Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson, is inspired by Gutierrez’s own expectant fatherhood and is a 2025 Sundance Film Festival Next selection. Neema Sadeghi (Noel Miller: Stop Crying) and Nicholas Bupp served as co-cinematographers. Below, they talk about working without a crew and contrasting a calm visual style with a mounting sense of narrative tension. See all responses to our annual Sundance cinematographer interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being […]

The post “Forgetting the Camera Was Rolling, It Hit Me”: DPs Neema Sadeghi & Nicholas Bupp on Serious People first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Serious People is co-directors Pasqual Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson Next feature about a music video director who hires a lookalike to replace him at work while his wife is pregnant. The film is inspired by Gutierrez’s own expectant fatherhood. Serious People is also the feature editorial debut of Nick Rondeau. Below, Rondeau talks about keeping the emotional core of the story central even while adapting a fly-on-the-wall observational approach. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your […]

The post “What It Means to be a Human Straddling These Two Worlds”: Editor Nick Rondeau on Serious People first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Serious People is co-directors Pasqual Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson Next feature about a music video director who hires a lookalike to replace him at work while his wife is pregnant. The film is inspired by Gutierrez’s own expectant fatherhood. Serious People is also the feature editorial debut of Nick Rondeau. Below, Rondeau talks about keeping the emotional core of the story central even while adapting a fly-on-the-wall observational approach. See all responses to our annual Sundance editor interviews here. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your […]

The post “What It Means to be a Human Straddling These Two Worlds”: Editor Nick Rondeau on Serious People first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Co-directors Pasqual Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson made a work of autofiction about the former’s expectant fatherhood and work-life balance in Serious People, about a music video director who hires a lookalike to take his place at work while his wife is pregnant. Serious People is also Laurel Thomson’s first feature film as a producer. She discusses what made this film so different to produce from other films she has worked on and the ensuing “baptism by fire” to get the film ready for Sundance, where it screens as part of the Next section. See all responses to our annual Sundance first-time producer […]

The post “Moviemaking on a Hyper-Condensed Timeline”: Producer Laurel Thomson on Serious People first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Co-directors Pasqual Gutierrez and Ben Mullinkosson made a work of autofiction about the former’s expectant fatherhood and work-life balance in Serious People, about a music video director who hires a lookalike to take his place at work while his wife is pregnant. Serious People is also Laurel Thomson’s first feature film as a producer. She discusses what made this film so different to produce from other films she has worked on and the ensuing “baptism by fire” to get the film ready for Sundance, where it screens as part of the Next section. See all responses to our annual Sundance first-time producer […]

The post “Moviemaking on a Hyper-Condensed Timeline”: Producer Laurel Thomson on Serious People first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Updated with Best Screenplay Award for Switch, written by Sara Robin: The 19th HollyShorts Film Festival has handed out its awards, including the Grand Prix Best Short Award to We Were Meant To, an honor that comes with a $60,000 prize from Panavision.

Tari Wariebi directed We Were Meant To, set in a reality where “Black men have wings and their first flight is a rite of passage.” The film stars Tim Johnson Jr. The Grand Prix Award qualifies the short for Oscar consideration. Also qualifying for the Oscars are Misan Harriman’s The After, which won Best Live Action Short, Rita Basulto’s Humo (Smoke), winner of the Best Animation Award, and Elisa Gambino’s Every Day After, winner of Best Documentary Short.

‘Humo’

The After stars David Oyelowo and Jessica Plummer. Animated winner Humo, meanwhile, “follows a boy called Daniel, who travels to a dark destination known as the smokehouse.

In a HollyShorts Film Festival awards ceremony that took place at midnight the day before a tropical storm was scheduled to his Los Angeles, Tari Wariebi’s “We Were Meant To” won a $60,000 prize and with the win qualified for the Academy Award in the Best Live Action Short category.

The awards were originally scheduled to be handed out on Sunday evening at the TLC Chinese Theatre, but they were moved to the unusual Saturday midnight slot as Hurricane Hilary approached.

“We Were Meant To,” set in a world where Black men can fly, won the Grand Prix for the best short in the 10-day festival, which began on Aug. 10 at the Chinese 6 Theatres in Hollywood. For the first time, the top film also received a $60,000 prize from Panasonic, in addition to the Oscar qualification.

Three other films also qualified for this year’s Oscars by winning awards at HollyShorts: Misan Harriman’s “The After,...

and hear something holy in the band’s rapturous synth-pop hymns, Anton Corbijn’s “Spirits in the Forest” is the definition of a “fans only” experience, and yet the fun of this delightful bop of a film — not to mention its basic thesis — is located in the idea that Depeche Mode fans are way more widespread and diverse than you might imagine these days. In fact, you might be one of them, even if you don’t know it yet (or have forgotten it at some point over the years).

Co-directed by Pasqual Gutierrez and John Merizalde, “Spirits in the Forest” centers on two ecstatic arena shows that Depeche Mode performed at Berlin’s Waldbühne in July 2018 at the tail end of their most recent world tour. And while the band’s music is what holds this movie together, Corbijn is more interested in the people who take it with them wherever they go.

Cuco and Suscat0 drop acid in their latest music video, “Keeping Tabs,” released on Tuesday. The song comes from Cuco’s debut album, Para Mi, released this past July.

In the clip, directed by the production duo Circa (Pasqual Gutierrez and Rj Sanchez), Cuco and Suscat0 first take the psychedelic drug in the parking lot of the Northeast Los Angeles Super A supermarket, which some may recognize from that frozen peas scene in A Star Is Born. The friends end up in a neon-lit disco club, where a drag queen...

Rosalía and Ozuna — two Spanish-language pop titans, from opposite ends of the Atlantic — released a surprise track on Thursday, titled “Yo X Ti, Tu X Mi.”

In what translates to “Me for You, You for Me,” the duo trade off flirty verses to a featherweight reggaeton groove, accented by mellow steel drums. “I sing to you because you sing to me,” sings Ozuna sweetly, before kicking off the earworm of a chorus. They cozy up to one another in the video, which follows them through a series of luxe hotel...

The 21st Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival has just been voted Best Film Festival Ever!……..maybe……if it hasn’t it should because this year’s fest has provided a breathtaking variety of docs, dramas, foreign flix, comedies, shorts, and….you name it!

Sliff.s main venues are the the Hi-Pointe Theatre, Tivoli Theatre, Plaza Frontenac Cinema, Webster University.s Winifred Moore Auditorium, Washington University.s Brown Hall Auditorium and the Wildey Theatre in Edwardsville, Il

The entire schedule for the 21st Annual Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival be found Here.

http://cinemastlouis.org/sliff-2012

Here is what will be screening at The 21st Whitaker St. Louis International Film Festival today, Friday, November 16th

Alter Egos

Alter Egos plays at 5:00pm at the Tivoli Theatre – Read The Wamg Review By Dana Jung Here

In the alternative world of Ârdizes an important mission with he discovers his...