Joy, pride and vibrant energy filled the Central American Voices Film Festival, which was held for the first time this year and took place on September 12 at the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre. Traditional music and children dressed in traditional attire brought a cheerful and festive environment to Los Angeles as many Central American filmmakers, directors and actors united to showcase their Latino-focused productions.
The CAVFF aims to center the perspectives of those hailing from Latin countries, including Nicaragua, Guatemala and Belize. Besides screening productions, the festival also featured Q&As with filmmakers, panels, and networking activities to connect with movie-passionate people of all ages and backgrounds.
“You can’t know where you are going if you don’t know where you come from,” shared Miss Grand Honduras Comunidad USA Haley Amaya, highlighting the importance for Latino descendants to enrich themselves with movies and stories based on their origins.
According to data from the Migration Policy Institute, in 2023, around 4.3 million people from Central American backgrounds lived in the United States, especially Belize, Costa Rica and El Salvador descendants. According to the same source, most of them live in California, Texas and Florida.
But even with this substantial population adding to the large Latino presence in the U.S., the inclusion of Latino characters in movies — played by Latino actors — is still characterized by “underrepresentation and stereotypical portrayals,” according to the L.A. Times. Moreover, according to a study from the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative in 2023, among a sample of 1,600 popular movies, only 5.5% of them showed Hispanic and Latino characters.
For this reason, a significant group of Central American filmmakers hosted two film festivals this year to address this problem and increase the visibility of Latinos’ voices and stories in movies and TV productions.
One of the productions screened at CAVFF was a documentary directed by L.A.-based filmmaker Raymundo Archila called “El Xolo.” It follows Salvadoran chef Alexander Herrera and how his restaurant — which was included in “Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants” in 2022 — and food reflect his country’s legacy and identity.
In addition, the movie “Eva” was screened at opening night, a Honduran film directed by William Reyes. This tragic film tells the story of Eva, a transgender woman who pressures her son to fight for custody of his newborn son after his wife died while giving birth.
Latin America: A single country?
More than one filmmaker who attended the CAVFF shared that the main problem for Latinos in Hollywood and the American movie industry is the missing space for stories, characters, plots and settings from Central America.
Amaya, a Honduran-American raised on the West Coast, says she rarely saw Central American-focused characters and stories in Hollywood films when she grew up. So she’s glad this festival can increase Latino representation in movies here.
Archila, who is also a 2016 graduate of USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, was at the festival to present his documentary “El Xolo.” He said the movie industry in his country is “still in diapers.”
Besides El Salvador, he thinks other countries such as Guatemala, Honduras and Panama are underrepresented because they face financial barriers and have fewer opportunities to show their unique culture and values in movies. To him, people usually associate the word Latinos with Mexico and Spain, leaving other countries behind.
“When it comes to representing El Salvador in movies, we usually hear the negative things we have. But we are much more than that,” he said.
Quiroz shared that the idea of CAVFF started six years ago when she launched the podcast “Central American Voices” to address the underrepresentation of Latinos in the media. In this podcast, she interviewed people from all industries: Writers, artists, creatives, professors, and lawyers.
A few weeks after CAVFF, the 18th edition of the Hola Mexico Film Festival took place at the Montalbán Theater, in L.A., on September 25. This festival ran for one week to celebrate contemporary Mexican talents in a city that houses four million people from this country.
This festival featured “Loco México Mágico,” a 2026 film directed by Carlos Santos at opening night and concluded with the screening of “Amarte” — directed by Roberto Girault and also released this year. Also, for the first time, the festival included the screening of two Mexican TV series, “El Juicio” and “Prefiero la Muerte.”
Festival founder and director, Samuel Douek, attended opening night and shared that this event’s main purpose was, from the beginning, to bring Mexican movies that were seen around the world but not so much in L.A.
“Cannes, Venezia, San Sebastian and Toronto film festivals always show Mexican movies, but there’s still room for watching them in other movie theaters,” Doukehe said. “Fortunately, streaming platforms allow us to be seen quickly all over the world.”
Netflix celebrated its 10th anniversary in Mexico this year with 15 new titles, including movies, series and documentaries. Likewise, the company shared that, between 2016 and 2025, more than 200 projects have been produced or co-produced in this country.
This increasing representation of Central American stories in movies not only paves the way for future festivals and initiatives aimed at sharing Latin culture with the world, but also works as a lesson for beginner cineasts to put themselves out there and proactively open a window to show their own cultural heritage.
In this sense, screenwriter J.D. Rodriguez, who wrote the short film “Zero Tolerance” that screened at the CAVFF, follows the story of an immigrant couple through their constant fear of deportation.
“All the people that participated in this movie are half Mexicans and Central Americans, and we decided to create this piece to talk about this relevant topic of immigration and family separation, which is affecting many people today,” Rodriguez said.
He encourages filmmakers to look for more representation opportunities.
“We are millions of immigrants and no one knows what we’ve been through,” Rodriguez said. “If we don’t tell our stories, no one is going to do it for us. If it’s not in Hollywood, then on TV or in festivals, but we have to do it.”
Edited by Sammie Vassallo and Adilene Gomez Santiago