FUSION today announced a partnership with the National Hispanic Foundation of the Arts (NHFA) to launch a film scholarship challenge. The challenge aims to give young, multicultural filmmakers and digital journalists the opportunity to create both short documentary and fiction film projects. Winners will receive scholarship funding to produce their films which will be featured and distributed across FUSION’s various television, digital, and OTT platforms.  

“We are committed to unleashing the curiosity and creativity that can be found in so many young, multicultural filmmakers. I am thrilled that by partnering with the NHFA, FUSION can provide both the opportunities and the platforms to showcase their work,” said FUSION CEO Isaac Lee. 

“NHFA looks forward to working with FUSION to both identify and tap into the power of the next generation of filmmakers through this ground breaking program. Our partnership provides a valuable and necessary opportunity to create original programming content that matters to the Latino community,” said NHFA Chairman and Co-founder Felix Sanchez.

NHFA and FUSION will begin accepting entries on January 11, 2016; entrants must submit written pitches by February 19. Entries will be judged on originality, creativity, quality, and feasibility of production. Winners will be selected by a panel of NHFA and FUSION representatives including NHFA alumni. Details and rules will be available at http://www.hispanicarts.org/.

Actors Jimmy Smits, Sonia Braga, Esai Morales, Merel Julia along with attorney Felix Sanchez, created the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts in 1997 to advance the presence of Latinos in the media, telecommunications and entertainment industries. The Foundation has concentrated on increasing access for Hispanic artists and professionals while fostering the emergence of new Hispanic talent. The Hispanic community – which makes up 17 percent of the U.S. population – has become the nation’s largest ethnic minority group and is increasingly recognized for its potentially enormous consumer and political power. The entertainment industry has been making progress, but an enormous gap still exists before the Hispanic community is adequately reflected on stage and on both the small and big screens. Paradoxically, while the entertainment industry and its advertisers tap into the Hispanic community’s resources, programming still falls short of the need to expand and present U.S. Latinos in a more modern and contemporary manner. This omission deprives an entire community of a source of cultural pride and reality and the country-at-large of a true picture of the American mosaic.