LOMA Film Festival presented by LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes 2025 Block 3

Director Biography

Alessandro Gentile is an award-winning director and cinematographer. His short film “Lodo” had its World Premiere at the Santa Barbara Int’l Film Festival in 2022 and has won five awards to date, including the Tim Burton Visionary Award for directing at the Burbank Int’l Film Festival. Most recently, Gentile participated as a cinematographer on the award-winning feature film, “Moon Garden” now screening in select theaters in New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.

Gentile’s third short film “Della” has been completed and going out to film festivals nationwide for presentation in 2025. In 2012, Gentile shot the television pilot for the Emmy Award-winning series “Schitt’s Creek.” In 2014, he co-founded the Highland Park Independent Film Festival. In 2020, Gentile was acknowledged at the Brazil Int’l Independent Film Festival by receiving a Best Cinematography award for his cinematography work on the feature film “Trade” and has garnered two Telly Awards for innovation in youth education.

In the commercial world, Gentile has provided services to corporate clients such as Microsoft, BMW and Acura. He has a bachelor’s degree in Film Studies from UC Santa Barbara and studied cinematography at UCLA.

“Razón de Ser: Luis C. Garza” is a documentary that chronicles the story of this rare Chicano photographer who uniquely documented activist movements on both coasts, and internationally, during the 1960s and 1970s.

Perhaps best known recently for his work in co-curating the blockbuster LA RAZA exhibition at The Autry as part of The Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, Garza’s work spans from the Chicano civil rights movement in Southern California to New York where he captured scenes of his South Bronx neighborhood, demonstrations on women’s rights, and rallies by the Young Lords Party who sought to empower Puerto Ricans and other colonized people. It also includes his 1971 travels to Eastern Europe for the World Peace Conference where, as a young Chicano student, he met renowned Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros.

Currently, 80-year-old Garza is seeking an institution to properly archive his nearly 8,000 film negatives of his life’s work.

LODO

Ten year old Eru starts his day going to the cemetery with his Grandmother on the anniversary of his Mother’s passing.  Later, he returns near the cemetery to play soccer with this friend although the watchful caretaker has warned them not to play soccer there out of respect. When the ball accidentally falls into the sacred grounds, Eru must enter.  In his attempt to retrieve the ball, he falls into the mud surrounding a tree.  Days later, Eru has been in a trance-like state from unexpected encounters. haunting dreams and an unlikely visit from his deceased mother’s spirit.  Upon learning of her grandson’s doing at the cemetery, the knowing Grandmother goes to task to remove the energies affecting young Eru. After the cleanse and to his surprise, Eru learns that the caretaker has been a guardian of his all along and through that visit from his Mother’s spirit as well as the caretaker’s message from her, he finds some solace in a new found feeling of the place he occupies in the world.

Boundless Borders (trailer)

“Boundless Borders” is about an undocumented student from Guatemala who overcomes language barriers, financial struggles, and the threat of deportation to pursue his dream of higher education in the United States, showcasing the transformative power of education and the resilience of the human spirit.

All City Murals of L.A.: Road to the Olympics (trailer)

“All City Murals of L.A.: Road to the Olympics” will examine the differences between mural art, graffiti art and tagging. How these art forms coincide with each other and how they collide. All of this while following the connective timeline of the 1984 Olympics and the coming up 2028 Olympics.