Sundance Film Festival Heads to New Mexico to Help Latino Filmmakers

Actor and director Robert Redford is teaming up with New Mexico to give more opportunities in film to Native American and Hispanic filmmakers, the Daily News reports.

On Thursday, New Mexico governor Bill Richardson and Redford announced Sundance in New Mexico; Redford said that since his 1988 movie The Milagro Beanfield, he’s held the southwestern state close to his heart, and this project was just a way to give back. Redford's Sundance Institute in Utah will work with the Department of Cultural Affairs and the New Mexico Film Office to develop programs in film, arts and the environment.

Redford talked about growing up in one of the few Anglo households in a Hispanic, working-class neighborhood of Los Angeles, where he was exposed to and became interested in Latin culture. In 2004 he was executive producer of The Motorcycle Diaries, the Gael García Bernal-protagonized Che Guevara biopic.

Sundance in New Mexico will be based at Los Luceros, the historic, state-owned hacienda and complex of buildings along the Rio Grande north of Espanola.