America Ferrara to Receive Groundbreaker Award at Critics Choice Association’s Celebration of Cinema & Television: Honoring Black, Latino and AAPI Achievements

America Ferrara is receiving a special Critics Choice honor…

The 39-year-old Honduran American Golden Globe– and Emmy-winning actress is among the honorees for the Critics Choice Association’s Celebration of Cinema & Television: Honoring Black, Latino and AAPI Achievements.

America FerreraHosted by Nicco Annan, the event is slated for December 4 at the Fairmont Century Plaza.

Unlike last year, when the CCA held separate ceremonies for Black, Latino and AAPI Achievements, this year, because of the strikes, the CCA is presenting a one-time-only combination show, featuring more than 20 honorees who created some of this year’s most acclaimed films and television shows.

“For the last few years, the CCA has hosted individual Celebrations of Black, Latino and AAPI Cinema & Television. CCA will return to individual shows in 2024, but doing this special celebration allows us to continue the CCA’s tradition of supporting inclusion and creativity in our industry,” said CCA CEO Joey Berlin. “I am extremely proud to recognize this diverse group of honorees together on this one special night.”

This year’s honorees include:

Emmy Award-winning actor and producer Edward James Olmos who will receive the Icon Award for his incredible career including Zoot Suit, Selena, Stand and Deliver, Blade Runner, Miami Vice and most recently FX’s Mayans M.C.

Emmy Award-winning actress, producer and advocate Sheryl Lee Ralph will receive the Career Achievement Award for her extensive work in film & television with over 100 credits including ABC’s Abbott Elementary as well as Instant Mom, Ray DonovanMoesha, Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit, Mistress, The Distinguished Gentlemen and To Sleep with Anger.

The Comedy Trailblazer Award will be bestowed upon comedian and actor Ken Jeong, whose notable credits include The Masked SingerThe AfterpartyCommunityCrazy Rich Asians, I Can See Your Voice and The Hangover franchise.

Emmy Award-winning actor Jeffrey Wright will be honored with the Visionary Award for his performance in Orion Pictures/Amazon MGM Studios’ American Fiction.

Emmy- and SAG Award-winning actress America Ferrara will accept the Groundbreaker Award for her performances in Warner Bros.’ Barbie and Sony Pictures/Black Bear Pictures’ Dumb Money.

Oscar-nominated Charles D. King will receive the Producer Award for his most recent work on Netflix’s They Cloned Tyrone.

Award-winning director, producer, actress and advocate Eva Longoria will be recognized with the Breakthrough Director Award (Film) for her feature directorial debut, Searchlight Pictures’ Flamin’ Hot.

Greta Lee will receive the Actress Award (Film) for her performance in A24’s film Past Lives, while Colman Domingo will be recognized with the Actor Award (Film) for his performance in Netflix’s Rustin.

The Ensemble Award will be awarded to Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Fantasia Barrino, H.E.R., Halle Bailey, Phylicia Pearl Mpasi, Domingo and Corey Hawkins for their performances in Warner Bros.’ The Color Purple.

Actress Da’Vine Joy Randolph will be honored with the Supporting Actress Award (Film) for her performance in Focus Features’ The Holdovers.

Emmy-nominated narrative filmmaker and documentarian Allen Hughes will be celebrated with the Documentary Series Award for his work directing FX’s Dear Mama.

Oscar-nominated filmmaker and playwright Kemp Powers will be honored with the Animation Award for his directorial work on Sony Pictures’ film Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse.

Animator and filmmaker Makoto Shinkai will accept the International Animation Award for Crunchyroll/Sony Pictures’ film Suzume.

Actor and producer Damson Idris will receive the Actor Award (TV) for his performance in FX’s Snowfall.

Current Emmy-nominated actress and comedian Jessica Williams will be recognized with the Supporting Actress Award (TV) for her performance in Apple TV+’s Shrinking.

Actor Oscar Montoya will be honored with the Supporting Actor Award (TV) for his performance in Starz’s Minx.

Breakthrough Performance Awards will be bestowed upon Teyana Taylor for her performance in Focus Features’ A Thousand and One, Emmy-nominee Camila Morrone for her performance in Prime Video’s Daisy Jones & The Six, and Charles Melton for his performance in Netflix’s May December.

Current multiple Emmy-nominated director and writer Lee Sung Jin will be honored with the Breakthrough Director Award (TV) for his work on Netflix’s series Beef.

Receiving the Rising Star Awards will be Xolo Mariduena for his performance in Warner Bros.’ The Blue Beetle, and current Emmy nominee Keivonn Woodard for his performance in HBO’s The Last of Us.

Diego Luna to Receive 2021 Platino Award of Honor

Diego Luna is being celebrated for his platinum career.

This year’s seventh edition of the Ibero-American Platino Awards (Premios Platinos) will honor the 41-year-old Mexican actor, director, producer and festival organizer with the Platino Award of Honor.

Diego Luna

An itinerant award show by design, this year’s Platinos will be held on October 3 in Madrid.

Luna will be the youngest recipient of the career achievement honor, joining previous winners Miguel Rafael Martos Sánchez, often simply referred to as Raphael, one of Spain’s most iconic entertainers of the 20th century; Adriana Barraza, the Oscar nominated Spanish-English-language crossover star of Alejandro Iñárritu’s Babel and Amores Perros; Oscar and three time Primetime Emmy nominee Edward James Olmos (Stand and Deliver); Oscar nominee Antonio Banderas (Pain and Glory); and Primetime Emmy (The Burning Season) and BAFTA (“Dona Flor e Seus Dois Maridos) nominee Sonia Braga.

A child actor who excelled from an early age, Luna’s first film appearance was in Javier Bourges’ 1991 Mexican Academy Award-nominated short The Last New Year.” He appeared in several telenovelas throughout the ‘90s, joined on screen for the first time by his longtime collaborator and close friend Gael García Bernal in El abuelo y yo in 1992. Alternating between film and television over the next decade, his international breakout came with García Bernal and Spain’s Marbel Verdú in Alfonso Cuarón’s seminal coming-of-age road trip film “Y Tu Mamá También.”

Shortly after, Luna began his Hollywood career appearing alongside Bon Jovi in John Carpenter’s Vampires: Los Muertos and in Salma Hayek’s Oscar-winning biopic Frida.

In the decades since, Luna has continued to work on both Latin American and U.S. productions while also taking turns as a producer, writer and director. He also, again with García Bernal, launched the nomadic documentary film festival Ambulante, as well as their own production label, first Canana in 2005 and now La Corriente del Golfo.

Most recently, he created and hosts the Amazon Original conversation series Pan y Circo and is starring in the Disney+’s Andor, a spinoff series following his Rogue One: A Star Wars Story character Cassian Andor.

He was also recently confirmed as a voice actor for Netflix’s upcoming animated series Maya and the Three, where he will team with frequent collaborator Jorge Gutierrez (The Book of Life).

Last year’s ceremony was, like so many, forced online by the COVID-19 pandemic. But this time around, the Platinos are planning an in-person event to celebrate the best offerings from the Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American screen industries.

At 11 nominations each, the two standout titles are Fernando Trueba’s Colombian drama Memories of My Father and Jayro Bustamante’s Guatemalan thriller La Llorona.

The Platino Awards are promoted by EGEDA (Spain’s Entity for the Rights Management of Audiovisual Producers) and FIPCA (the Ibero-American Federation of Film and Audiovisual Producers) and have the support of the Ibero-American film academies and institutes as well as numerous sponsors in Europe and Latin America.

Ryan Guzman to Star in the 9/11-Themed Drama “Windows on the World”

Ryan Guzman is opening a window on th world…

The 29-year-old half-Mexican American actor will star opposite Edward James Olmos in the feature film Windows on the World, a father-son drama about the aftermath of 9/11, according to Variety.

Ryan Guzman

Shooting will begin on July 10 in Mexico and New York City.

Olmos’ son Michael D. Olmos will direct from a script by Robert Mailer Anderson and Zack Anderson.

“Windows on the World” will start in Mexico, where a man watches the news on September 11, 2001, with his family and travels to New York City to find his father, who was working on the top floor of the Twin Towers. The Windows on the World venues were on the top floors of the North Tower.

Guzman rose to fame in Step Up: Revolution and Step Up All In, then starred in The Boy Next Door with Jennifer Lopez, Jem and the Holograms, and in Richard Linklater’s Everybody Wants Some.

Olmos broke out in 1981’s Zoot Suit and 1982’s Blade Runner. He was nominated for a best actor Academy Award for Stand and Deliver and starred in the series Battlestar Galactica and Miami Vice. He is reprising his role as Gaff in the upcoming Blade Runner 2049.

Michael D. Olmos has directing credits on Filly Brown, The Green Ghost, and Bedrooms.

Olmos to Take Part in Center Theatre Group’s 50th Anniversary Event

It’s a special homecoming for Edward James Olmos

The 70-year-old Mexican American actor will take part in a star-studded event to celebrate the Center Theatre Group’s 50 years of excellence.

Edward James Olmos

The event will feature a one-night-only production from writer, director and producer Robert Egan, followed by dinner in downtown Los Angeles’ Grand Park.

Co-Chairs Robert Greenblatt, chairman of NBC Entertainment, and Sue Tsao, Center Theatre Group board member will be joined by celebrated alumni like Olmos, Alfred Molina, Annette Bening, Matthew Bourne, Danai GuriraPhylicia Rashad and more.

The celebration, taking place on May 20 at the Ahmanson Theatre, will spotlight Center Theatre Group’s education and community outreach programs as well as its continuing role in creating new work and helping to define the role of theatre both in Los Angeles and beyond.

“We are thrilled to have so many incredible artists returning to help us celebrate this exciting milestone, and the power of theatre to shape the cultural landscape of Los Angeles,” said Center Theatre Group Board President Kiki Ramos Gindler. “Our 50th Anniversary Celebration will bring together some of our most beloved and talented artists to reflect on Center Theatre Group’s proud history of world-class productions, innovative programs and field-defining new work.”

Olmos, an Academy Award nominee for his performance in Stand and Deliver, starred in the in the Center Theatre Group’s production of the Chicano protest musical Zoot Suit as El Pachuco back in 1978. Oscar-nominated actor Demian Bichir stepped into that role for the revival of the Luis Valdez play, also produced by the Center Theater Group.

Olmos to Star in FX’s “Sons of Anarchy” Spinoff Drama Pilot “Mayans MC”

Edward James Olmos is ready to ride…

The 69-year-old Mexican American actor has been cast in Kurt Sutter’s FX drama pilot Mayans MC (working title), a spinoff of his hit series Sons of Anarchy.

Edward James Olmos

Co-created by Sutter and Elgin James, Mayans MC is set in the aftermath of Jax Teller’s death at the end of SOAs seven-season run in 2014. The offshoot will focus on the struggles of EZ Reyes, a prospect in the Mayan MC charter on the California/Mexico border.

Olmos, an Oscar nominee for his work in Stand and Deliver, will co-star as EZ’s father, Felipe Reyes, the once strong Mexican patriarch, crushed by bullets and hard labor, who struggles to keep his past buried and lead his sons down a lawful, righteous path.

Sutter is executive producing and directing the pilot, with James co-executive producing for Fox 21 Television Studios and FX Productions.

Olmos, a Battlestar Galactica alum, recently recurred on ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. His other television credits include Dexter, CSI: NY, Eureka and Portlandia.

Olmos Participates in Hispanic Scholarship Fund Campaign Aimed at Getting More Latinos Enrolled in College

Edward James Olmos is telling parents to stand and deliver when it comes to their children and their futures…

This Hispanic Heritage Month, the 67-year-old Mexican American actor is among the Latino celebrities making parents aware of the many resources available to help them send their kids to college.

Edward James Olmos

Olmos recorded a public service announcement (PSA) to encourage Hispanic parents to look into scholarships and planning tools for their children.

The campaign, launched by the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) and the Ad Council, aims to offer access to the resources Latino parents need to help their children prepare, plan, and pay for college.

Today, Hispanics make up 19 percent of college students from the ages of 18 to 24, a number that is up from 12 percent in 2008, according to the HSF.

The PSA campaign empowers parents to help their children navigate the college application process and access the resources and support needed to excel in their studies and graduate.

According to a 2009 Pew Hispanic Center survey, 88% of Latinos ages 16 and older agreed that a college degree is necessary to get ahead in life today, as compared to only 74% of all Americans ages 16 and older.

Other celebrities filming PSAs include CSI: Miami alum Adam Rodriguez and Univision co-anchors Jorge Ramos and María Elena Salinas.

“El Mariachi” & “Stand and Deliver” Added to National Film Registry’s Preservation List

Robert Rodriguez and Ramón Menéndez have cemented their status as Latino luminaries in American film history.

The Mexican-American Rodriguez’s El Mariachi and the Cuban-born Menéndez’s Stand and Deliver have been selected as this year’s additions to the National Film Registry of films for preservation by the Library of Congress for “their enduring significance to American Culture.”

El Mariachi Poster

El Mariachi (1992): Directed, edited, co-produced and written in a short two weeks by then-film student Rodriguez for only $7,000, El Mariachi became an insta-hit on the film festival circuit. After being picked up for distribution, the film helped usher in the independent movie boom of the early 1990s. El Mariachi is an energetic, highly entertaining tale of an itinerant musician who arrives at a Mexican border town during a drug war and is mistaken for a hit man who recently escaped from prison. The story, as film historian Charles Ramirez Berg has suggested, plays with expectations common to two popular exploitation genres—the narcotraficante film, a Mexican police genre, and the transnational warrior-action film, itself rooted in Hollywood Westerns. Rodriguez’s success derived from invigorating these genres with creative variants despite the constraints of a shoestring budget. Rodriguez has gone on to become, in Berg’s estimation, “arguably the most successful Latino director ever to work in Hollywood.”

Stand and Deliver Poster

Stand and Deliver (1988): Based on a true story, Stand and Deliver stars Edward James Olmos in an Oscar-nominated performance as crusading educator Jaime Escalante. A math teacher in East Los Angeles, Escalante inspired his underprivileged students to undertake an intensive program in calculus, achieve high test scores and improve their sense of self-worth. Co-produced by Olmos and directed by Menéndez, Stand and Deliver became one of the most popular of a new wave of narrative feature films produced in the 1980s by Latino filmmakers. The film celebrates in a direct, approachable, and impactful way, values of self-betterment through hard work and power through knowledge. Menéndez’s first feature film won six IFP Spirit Awards including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay.

In all, 25 movies were selected from a lost of more than 2,200 titles nominated this year, including Fake Fruit Factory (1986), a documentary that takes an expressive, sympathetic look at the everyday lives of young Mexican women who create ornamental paper maché fruits and vegetables.