The L.A. film industry is less “red carpet and limos” nowadays and more “figuring out how to mix your own audio and light your own set.” Despite these conditions, rising directors and filmmakers still dare to create motion pictures against the odds.
Some of the folks that understand the hustle best are the ones running Silver Lake Shorts, a 501(c)3 non-profit that hosts free monthly screenings at El Cid on Sunset Boulevard. During each showing, they screen about 90 minutes of short films, both animated and live action.
“It just creates this really beautiful dynamic of more established creators screening top-level stuff, and then more emerging creators testing things out and working through things and seeing their work screened with a big crowd,” co-executive director Jared Corwin tells L.A. TACO.
Corwin moved to L.A. in 2014 to pursue TV writing, subsidizing his aspirations with steady budtending. In 2020, he screened his short film at an earlier rendition of “Silver Lake Shorts,” which was started by Ben Sharp, current co-executive director and past El Cid manager.
The duo spent the last few years developing Silver Lake Shorts into what it is now, a sponsored organization platforming artists and even funding a group of directing fellows. Every month they prove that there’s a lively ecosystem of filmmakers, many of them on the brink of creating their own magnum opus.
Whether you’re into mindfuck sci-fi, grieving puppets, or heavy stories about identity, these are 10 L.A. filmmakers you need to be watching right now.
DANIELA APODACA
Originally from Harbor City, Daniela Apodaca spent years in the restaurant industry before assisting her husband with videography. Together, the couple worked on filming corporate videos, interviews, and music videos.
After a monthslong content creation gig under Enkrypt Los Angeles, Apodaca continued doing video work, mainly for clothing brands like Learn to Forget, which was founded by artists from Death by Stereo, The Adolescents, and Night Verses.
Apodaca continued winding this connection between music and storytelling together in her official directorial debut, a music video with themes of teen dating violence released in 2025.
Afterward, 818-native Natalie Garcia aka Chicana Nat reached out to Apodaca to join her project, “Brujitas,” an indie sci-fi series about young witches in the Valley. Apodaca is the show’s director and co-producer, and the first concept episode was released on YouTube.
“I love speaking on resilience, a lot of identities, just because me being born in Mexico and being a DACA recipient, I felt like I was constantly trying to find my own identity as somebody who wasn't born here, but lived the majority of my life [here],” Apodaca tells L.A. TACO.
Apodaca is also a host, booker, and visual director for Bitter Radio, a radio show featuring cumbia, house, and electronic sets. She tells L.A. TACO that she is working on building a site . . . and could use some help from any interested readers.
CHRISTIAN LEE
L.A.-native Christian Lee graduated from UCLA just last month but has already established himself as a professional photographer, accumulating credits in The New York Times, TIME, and L.A. Times.
Lee tells L.A. TACO that watching early L.A. Rebellion films “sort of radicalized” him.
“What was so different about those films, and why I really became a filmmaker was, I'd always yearned to tell stories about working-class communities of color that had a level of complexity and nuance to them that we hadn't seen in cinema, and these filmmakers not only did that, but they were incredibly young when they accomplished it,” Lee says.
Since he didn’t have the resources for filmmaking, Lee says that he took up photography instead.
“I think it trained my eyes as a cinematographer and as a director, but I also fell in love with it, because I mean, images have made such an impact on me,” Lee says. His first photobook was released by Kris Graves Projects this year.
Lee is a 2026 documentary fellow at The Gotham Film & Media Institute currently working on his first feature film, “Come Sunday,” which focuses on South Central’s First AME Church. This hybrid docufiction drama explores relationships between Black and Korean communities in South Central, including experiences of anti-Blackness in Asian communities.
GISELLE BONILLA
Originally from North Hollywood, Giselle Bonilla entered the film industry as a child actor in films like “Freedom Writers,” guided by her father, who was also an actor.
Bonilla tells L.A. TACO that she loved acting at first but became “tired” of the gigs, given that most of her roles were built upon racist Mexican stereotypes. So, she quit acting to “make comedies,” receiving her MFA in Directing from the American Film Institute Conservatory.
“As a filmmaker, I just promised myself I would never allow anyone to have agency over my career,” Bonilla says. “I'd rather be broke as shit and mean what I say when I have the privilege to say it.”
Bonilla’s films navigate complex topics such as white liberalism but remain grounded in comedy. She says this is because her neutral state is “rage,” and people are more likely to listen to what she has to say if she makes them laugh first.
Her feature film “The Musical” starring Will Brill, Rob Lowe, and Gillian Jacobs premiered at Sundance this year. The dark comedy centers on a middle school theater teacher who stages a musical rendition of 9/11 to spite his nemesis, the school’s principal.
“I've been making super short films for like 15 years, and they've never got into any big festivals,” Bonilla says. “And then to make my first feature and have that get into Sundance, I felt like I was hallucinating. It was so absurd, and my whole family came. It felt like my wedding.”
“The Musical” will be distributed to theaters soon, according to Bonilla.
LUIS REYES
Luis Reyes delved into the American cinema canon at a young age, marathoning silent film compilations and Popeye cartoons their father bought from the swap meet. They made their first short film at around five years old after watching “The Kid” by Charlie Chaplin.
“I feel that silent films, animation, early filmmaking in general has this certain tone to it that I'm trying to recapture with my stuff . . . I think it's because, for me, those early films feel like the closest interpretation of, like, dreams,” Reyes says.
Reyes doesn’t create fantasy movies; instead, they incorporate elements of fantasy into their films, which are “all inspired by real-life people, scenarios, and locations” they grew up around. Their work draws from their upbringing spent in the SGV and IE, grounded in drawing out the surreal moments that live within everyday experiences.
Shot on Super 16 mm film, Reyes’ post-film school short, “Dalila’s Salon,” is an eerie and sentimental homage to the impact that neighborhood salons have on communities throughout South Central and East L.A.
Funded by Silver Lake Shorts and directed by Reyes, “It Came From La Familia” introduces experimental imagery resembling their relatives’ bedrooms, having spent much of their childhood at their “abuelita’s and tia’s houses.”
CHIKE ROBINSON
With a background in stand-up comedy, Chike Robinson is a filmmaker from Flint, Michigan, with a mission to change how people view his hometown.
“People have such a negative outlook on [Flint], or they just think about the water,” Robinson tells L.A. TACO.
He first got into comedy in Flint, performing during poetry shows—the only one who did stand-up—before branching out to Detroit and Ann Arbor. Robinson is now a South L.A. resident and Silver Lake Shorts fellow, creating short films and specializing in animation.
“I do want to talk about stuff that can empower people or translate an anxiety in a surreal, yet realistic way,” Robinson says.
Self-taught on the free and open source platform Blender, Robinson’s character designs are jarring yet approachable. The plump 3D renderings look as if globs of clay came to life and had to pay taxes. Some of his works include horror elements, but there is always humor.
“I've always been the person that thought the side character and some of the background characters should be the main character,” Robinson says.
Robinson says that “Tax Day,” his short tackling the hassle of paying one’s taxes and working in customer service, “opened his whole world.” Even the creator behind “Courage the Cowardly Dog” praised his work.
“I do all these on an old laptop . . . I also want to motivate kids and other people who can't afford to go to an animation school like CalArts,” Robinson says.
JENNY NIRGENDS
Stop motion filmmaker Jenny Nirgends split her childhood between L.A. and Guadalajara, where she made her first film at 10 years old. While attending an all-girls school, Nirgends directed and recorded her classmates’ adaptation of “Cyrano de Bergerac.” She even made costumes.
That natural craftiness manifests today through Nirgends’ creation of puppets and prop pieces. Sometimes she even produces music for her films.
Acclaimed by multiple short film festivals, Nirgends’ “The Last Wild Bird in Heaven,” a six-minute stop motion short, speaks to childhood grief, religious uncertainty, and our relationship to the earth.
“I think that's really cool to have the feeling that you're giving life to something that is dead, whether it's a puppet that you made, or clay, or beads, or anything,” Nirgends tells us. “You can animate it through photography.”
The autonomy of stop motion appeals to Nirgends, no matter how time-consuming, since it doesn’t require an entire set and crew.
“Things change so much from when you have the first idea until you're finishing the pieces, and then you're there filming it, and then you're editing it,” Nirgends says. “So, I think, for me, the most difficult part is deciding when to change things and when to keep things.”
ALIX BLOOM
Originally from Altadena and now living in Eagle Rock, Alix Bloom, aka ms.hotdog, is a director, writer, and occasional voice actor.
Bloom tells L.A. TACO that her “mom tried to make her a child actor,” spending her childhood auditioning for kids shows like “iCarly” and “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody” and attending weekend acting classes.
At about 21 years old, Bloom dropped out of college to work on the satirical comedy “Nathan for You.” While writing for Amazon’s “The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh,” the SAG-AFTRA strikes started. Right after the strike, Bloom signed onto two seasons of “Haunted Hotel,” an animated Netflix series.
Her short film, “My Wacky Life,” features charming, clever puppetry as inflatable tube men (made from felt) navigate love, family, and substance abuse. She is currently a Silver Lake Shorts fellow.
Bloom says that grief plays a large part in her writing and directing, namely from her father’s death by suicide during her childhood and the loss of her family’s home due to last year’s fires.
“From a writing perspective, I love to attach grief because there's so much comedy in it, too, like you do so many weird things when you're grieving, or you're just in a nonlinear pattern, and I think that's very interesting,” Bloom says.
JUAN JOSE RODRIGUEZ DRESCHER
Originally from Montevideo, Uruguay, Juan Jose Rodriguez Drescher attended The Los Angeles Film School during the pandemic. He started filmmaking as a kid when his best friend got a camera in fifth grade; the duo made skits and sketches together, alternating who filmed and who starred in their projects.
As a student, Rodriguez Drescher created a mindfucky, award-winning short called “Who the Hell Is Michael?” which follows a sitcom character as he realizes that the production studio he awakes in is run by AI. Filmed in 2023 and released in 2024, the film feels more relevant than ever.
Another bleak, timely film by Rodriguez Drescher, “(don’t) Shop Local,” uses horror elements to demonstrate the grip Amazon has on consumerism.
Ironically, Rodriguez Drescher says that hope drives his work. He says comic books are a big inspiration for him, reading them every day and buying new ones every week from Collector's Paradise in NoHo.
“Everyone needs to live, and we're all trying to live off of filmmaking in whatever way that [we can]. In modern times, it's verticals and YouTube, and kind of doing whatever you can, but if everyone were making low-budget movies and able to pay for it, it'd be a nice change to the industry,” Rodriguez Drescher says.
His first feature film, “In Dreams,” is currently in production.
“My favorite part of the whole thing? Just getting to revel in creation with your closest friends,” Rodriguez Drescher says.
(Editor's note: This article’s author, Julianne Le, is friends with Rodriguez Drescher’s girlfriend.)
FREE MAN AGYAPONG
Filmmaker and video journalist Francis Agyapong, Jr., aka Free Man Agyapong, grew up in Hoboken, New Jersey, as the son of Ghanaian immigrants. Agyapong tells L.A. TACO that he has always been “sensitive” to movies, genuinely torn apart when characters died onscreen.
During the summer before his senior year, he entered his first true venture into filmmaking when he took a media production class.
Agyapong’s short films are witty while presenting audiences with social commentary and flashes of humor, subverting expectations throughout. In 2024’s “ZIP,” Agyapong wrote and directed a narrative about misplaced workplace diversity efforts.
“I make surreal comedies with emphasis on the ‘real,’ and I'm currently making financial horror stories,” Agyapong says.
He moved to L.A. in 2020 and has produced both creative and journalistic content. You can find one of his works made with LA Local, an L.A. TACO partner outlet, here.
When asked how he incorporates his stylistic voice into various formats, Agyapong says, “There are these particular frameworks. You learn a lot of different things, and you realize that there's a throughline between all of these things, right? Like we said, journalism, filmmaking, whatever have you—it's all storytelling.”
DANSKI TANG
Experimental animator and filmmaker Danski Tang is originally from Zhuhai, a coastal city in China west of Hong Kong.
Her love for film swelled as an undergrad, renting DVDs every time she came home during school breaks.
“I just always find myself be[ing] interested in things that are kind of niche,” Tang tells L.A. TACO. “Even when I started in undergrad . . . I learned it in a traditional way, like character design and everything. But I still would make work that's kind of more experimental and more weird.”
Tang’s work mainly deals in “dreams, memories, and subconscious,” utilizing striking hand-drawn imagery to demonstrate emotions and concepts scarcely captured aptly onscreen.
In her 2019 documentary short “Umbilical,” Tang animates a conversation between herself and her mother, allowing the two to unpack a history of domestic abuse within their home and Tang’s queer adolescence. The short was screened internationally and has been recognized by organizations like Slamdance and San Diego Asian Film Festival.
“The first theater is in my head before I create,” Tang says.
Having lived in L.A. for the past decade, Tang has taught animation at her alma mater, the internationally acclaimed California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), and now mainly teaches at Cal State L.A. She also tattoos on the side.
