As a tribute to Michael Latt, New Media Ventures Summit held their first ever short film competition providing awards to three ground-breaking filmmakers.
1. Ignite Award: “A Million Dollar Cage” – Directed by Kyndra Kennedy, Produced by Kent Mendoza
Kyndra Kennedy is a writer, director and co-founder of KYNA Media Films with cinematographer and editor, Kenneth Cuadrado. Kyndra is a Los Angeles native, who attended UC Berkeley and studied screenwriting in Paris, France at the American University of Paris. After working in the IT software industry and longing to be in a more creative field, she decided to take a risk and pursue filmmaking full-time.
Her company, KYNA Media Films, specializes in independent film production and is based in North Hollywood, California. They have created content for major record labels as well as several independent recording artists. Their work has been streamed over 100 million times. Their original films, Gems, Black.Matters and Re, among others, have been official selections and won in international short film festivals, including My RØDE Reel, Moment Invitational Film Festival, United We Heal Film Festival, St. Louis International Film Festival, and the Music Bed Reopen Challenge.
Kent Mendoza was born in Mexico but migrated to the United States at the age of six. He grew up in Los Angeles County where at an early age he was exposed to gangs, drugs, and violence. He joined a gang at the age of fourteen and was incarcerated at fifteen and served time in a probation camp. At the age of seventeen, he was tried as an adult and faced a prison life sentence. Kent was instead sent to the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) for 7 years but served overall 5 years incarcerated. Kent was released from Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) hold on April 9, 2014.
Kent is a community organizer and activist, artist, writer, speaker, and youth mentor. He is also the Manager of Advocacy and Community Organizing at the Anti-Recidivism Coalition (ARC) where he started as the Member and Community Engagement Coordinator in 2016. Prior to working at ARC and during his own reentry journey, Kent worked at the LA Area Chamber of Commerce on smart justice issues where he held several positions from 2014 to 2016, including: Senior Administrative Assistant, Assistant, and intern. He successfully completed the 2015 Commission Training Program offered by the Wally Mark Leadership Institute from the Liberty Hill Foundation and was appointed by Gov. Brown to CA’s State Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (SACJJDP) in November 2016. Kent was also appointed to the Los Angeles Countywide Juvenile Justices Coordinated Council (JJCC) in 2018, and was re-appointed in 2020. Kent is a 2018 Aspen Institute Ricardo Salinas Scholar Alumni. Kent served as a leading consultant with the Haywood Burns Institute (BI) to LA County’s Youth Justice Reimagined (YJR) report paving the way in moving youth out of the probation department into a new one focused on youth development. Kent is now consulting with BI leading the Youth Justice Advisory Group (YJAG) in the first phase of YJR implementation.
2. Catalyst Award: “When They Come For Us” – Directed by Andre Muir
Writer and director Andre Muir is the son of Jamaican immigrants, born in Chicago, and now living in Brooklyn, NY. Andre Muir creates spiritual stories that explore the importance of language as it pertains to culture and its use for communication (or lack thereof) throughout his work. He often relies on a naturalistic, absurdist approach to speak to deeper truths, utilizing drawn-out moments and uninterrupted shots to bring tension to his scenes.
His award-winning short film 4 Corners is a film that examines gun violence in his hometown. 4 Corners won the Audience Award at the Chicago International Film Festival and the Best Short Film at the DC International Film Festival, while also winning the Short Film Grand Jury Prize at the MIFF, among others. His sophomore short “Patois”, a film about the Afro-Diaspora immigrant experience and the myth of black girlhood, won the Best Short at the Chicago Film Festival, and notably screened at the Pan African Film Festival, among others.
Andre Muir has won and been nominated for numerous awards including Webby Award, Ad Age, Cannes Lions, AICP Awards, 1.4 Awards, and Booooooom TV’s Best Short of the Year, to name a few. Andre was also part of the SHOOT New Directors Showcase and shots Black Directors Showcase. Most recently, Andre was selected as a recipient of the Sundance Institute’s inaugural Uprise Grant Fund for his screenplay The Predicament, a satire of America’s prison-industrial-complex. He was also selected as one of the Sundance Institute’s annual Screenwriters Intensive fellows.
3. Spark Award: “Flight” – Directed by Kia Moses
Armed with a suitcase full of banana chips, Kia left Jamaica to major in Advertising at The School Of Visual Arts (SVA) in New York. In 2007 she graduated with Honors, multiple awards and was ranked in the ‘top 100 Advertising Students in the U.S.A.’ After working at ad agencies in New York and London, plus interning for music video director ‘X’, she returned home with a passion to pour everything back into the Jamaican creative industry. Since then, this ‘Imaginationista’ (who clearly also makes up her own words) co-founded TCP Those Creative People and now spends her days switching gears between conceptualizing ideas, creative direction, copywriting and product development for TCP’s own product line – which includes Jamaican greeting cards and ‘One Bag Ah Tings’ (literally). After years of writing TV ads, she is excited to finally add screenplay writing and directing to this list. This is her first film. Her hobbies include reading, photography, ballet, and confidently screaming out wrong answers at Jeopardy.
https://newmediaventures.org/2024-new-media-ventures-summit
