By ROBERT DOMINGUEZ
Calixto Chinchilla was a frustrated young freelancer working for Warner Bros.' marketing department when he invented what has become the New York International Latino Film Festival.

He called it a wacky idea. Noting the dearth of mainstream films with major Hispanic characters - and the lack of attention Spanish-language movies got in the U.S. - Chinchilla decided to show a collection of these films at a Manhattan community center.

Four years later, "it's a platform where we showcase up-and-coming talent as equally diverse as the city's Latino population," says Chinchilla, 26. "I've never really seen it as a 'festival.' It's more like a movement."

Running tomorrow through Sunday at a handful of Manhattan theaters, the fest includes more than 50 features, shorts, documentaries and student works from the U.S. and Latin America. For a complete schedule, go to: www.nylatinofilm.com.

Here are three first-time filmmakers to watch for at this year's fest:

Steve Carrillo

Even if he had the money to make a feature-length 35mm film, Steve Carrillo would have chosen to make his directorial debut with a digital-video short.

Carrillo, 28, worked on short films while earning a bachelor's degree in production from SUNY Purchase. His brief r sum includes camera operator on the recent indie "Manito."

"I've always been really good with a camera, but after I got out of film school I wanted to prove to myself that I could direct. I just wanted to try to do a short film, and I made one on a cheap budget - a dirt-cheap budget," he says, laughing. "But I like the way it turned out." Carrillo's festival entry is "Platanero Salsero," a whimsical 16-minute character study of a poor plantain vendor in Colombia who puts on airs when he wins a small fortune playing the numbers.

Carrillo, born in Manhattan, traveled to his parents' hometown of Barranquilla, Colombia, to make the film. Using local actors and townspeople in small roles, Carrillo made the movie in Spanish (with English subtitles) to give it the look and feel of a Latin American import.

"I just want to be able to show [prospective] investors I can direct," says Carrillo, a substitute English teacher. "My next screenplay is ready and I've got a camera crew ready. But financially, I'm not ready."

Cyn Canel Rossi

As a playwright and Off-Off-Broadway producer, Cyn Canel Rossi, below, knows how difficult it can be mounting Hispanic-oriented stage shows. Yet that didn't dissuade her from writing and producing "Rhythm of the Saints," a Washington Heights-set drama about a teen girl who uses Santeria to get vengeance on her abusive stepfather. It's the fest's closing-night movie. studios years ago and they said they weren't interested in Latino-themed projects," says Canel Rossi.

"I produced what I could afford to produce, which was theater. But then we decided we were going to put everything on the line and make an independent film. People were willing to give us cash, so we went for it."

The film had its premiere at Sundance this year, but Canel Rossi is more interested in the response she gets this week.

"Our stories should be considered more universal, yet there's not a lot of people in the industry knocking down our doors," she says. "We have so few avenues, and we have to open those doors for ourselves."

Michael Tolajian

Writer-director Michael Tolajian, a second-generation Armenian-American who grew up in Massachusetts, knows he isn't the likeliest person to be making a Latino-themed film.

But the lead character in his feature debut, "Bought & Sold," is Puerto Rican. "Although I'm not Latino, I've gotten a good feel for the people, the culture and the language from my neighbors and friends," says the 36-year-old Tolajian. "So I always wanted to do a story that took place in a multi-ethnic neighborhood that had the underlying tension of all these different racial elements.

"But on the practical side, I knew there was a call for stories like this," he says. "Latinos are the biggest minority now, and I felt there wasn't enough of their stories being told." "Bought & Sold" is a lighthearted coming-of-age film about a teen who works for a Jersey City crime lord to finance his dream of being a club deejay. It got positive reviews at this year's Tribeca festival.

Tolajian is a sports documentary producer who won an Emmy three years ago for TNT's "Whatever Happened to Micheal Ray?" He financed his dream in a more typical manner. "I went to every aunt and uncle and every friend I had," says Tolajian. "I got a little money from a whole lot of people.

"The goal is to continue on the festival circuit through the end of the year and hopefully secure a distributor. I'm looking forward to pitching another script I wrote once this is released - or when it at least opens some doors."

Originally published on July 20, 2003

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