'Launchpad' Primer: Everything You Need To Know About Disney's Short Film Series, In The Words Of The Filmmakers

This week, Disney+ has an exciting new way to showcase young filmmakers from underrepresented backgrounds. Their new short-film series Launchpad goes live to the world on Friday, May 28, with six stories that offer diverse viewpoints on everything from Chinese to Jewish to Mexican cultures. We have a review of the series coming tomorrow, but there's no better way to get a rundown of what each of these short films are about than by hearing from the filmmakers themselves./Film sat down virtually with these young artists recently to hear their stories, the messages they want to share, and how they learned on the job with Disney. Here is everything you need to know about Launchpad, via the words of the filmmakers who made it.

The Filmmaker: Writer/director Stefanie Abel HorowitzWhat It's About: "I was thinking about this passing of the baton of life. I was a babysitter when I was in my early twenties and I took care of this incredible four-year-old who was sweet and loving and smart. But one day he tried to shoot me dead with his gun. And I [said], "Do you know what that means?" And he said no. I said, "Well, if I was dead, I wouldn't be able to come here anymore. I wouldn't get to play with you." And he got really sad and that made me think that this is the ultimate tragedy of our lives, that we're all going to die. And then everybody that we know is gonna die at some point, and we're gonna really go through suffering and loss over and over again. Why It Matters: "My question was, how do we deal with [death] in our culture and how do we share it? How do we talk to children about it? I personally am really bad at that. I'm the child of a therapist and I want to be happy all the time and I'm good at listening, but not so good at talking. So I wanted to explore that, that brave act of vulnerability and how it can create connection and community and remind you that you are not alone in this world." What They Learned: "I know that making a film is always a big collaborative effort, but because we got to go through this program with six of us, five other directors, I really got to go through it as part of a team and got to write a film with five other filmmakers who cared, giving these criticisms. And now I think the whole process wants to be a team sport. And if I can make it that way, I'm going to do it."

The Filmmaker: Writer/director Ann Marie PaceWhat It's About: "[Val is] struggling with being half human, half vampire. For me, that came from a place of being Mexican American and bisexual. When I was growing up, I felt a struggle between the worlds and what my identity was and where I fit amongst those worlds. I had to learn later in life, but if you're a part of multiple identities, it doesn't make you any less of that identity. It all compounds. So that was the idea I wanted to explore and show her journey, but in a way that still celebrates the fact that she's Mexican and and this other element becomes this vampire element."Why It Matters: "I'm going to look back at this time and feel that it was a pivotal moment in my career. And just my self-growth, being a Mexican and I came out later in life and to get to tell a story on a platform such as Disney+. It became healing to me and a huge part of my self-growth and journey." What They Learned: "I thought it was so cool that Launchpad really was diverse, from not only cast, but crew, from top to bottom. On set the first day, I remember looking around and just being really taken aback, how diverse everyone was in bringing their own life experiences to the story. Everyone had at one point or another felt like an outsider in their own specific way. And to have those personal experiences telling a story about an outsider, it felt really profound." 

The Filmmaker: Writer/director Jessica Mendez SiqueirosWhat It's About: "The film was inspired by...my great grandma. She died five days after her 100th birthday. My family has always been very, very proudly Mexican, and have always been indigenous to the land that we were from in Arizona originally. I realized after she died that I didn't gather the information that I should have from her. That left me feeling like a bit of a failure to my own culture and realizing that the responsibility is on us to keep our cultures alive. When I was prompted with what to propose for Launchpad, I started to think about what that meant on a mythical level. The way that we look at culture in this country can be with such a perspective of fear, of losing our own culture for fear of celebrating somebody else's. The best way for me to represent that was through a creature that was also very fearsome: the chupacabra." Why It Matters: "Getting so incredibly specific about your story...with the lineage of my family comes with so many complex layers. At a certain point, you just realize as a filmmaker that you have to get so incredibly specific about who you are. I think that's the biggest gift that we can give through our storytelling is this story. There's no way that I could possibly be a blanket for what Mexican-American means or for what in this huge umbrella term of Latinx means, but what I can do is get incredibly specific about my experience and the layers of culture that I have on my life and share those stories." What They Learned: "I'm obsessed with the short film format and it's not just because I haven't gotten to do the other one. Short films [are] a very difficult medium because you have to tell the whole story, but you literally can't tell the whole story. That's the beautiful balance: you get to work schematically. You don't necessarily have to work with answers. You don't have to give everything away about a character. You can just say, 'This is what I want to prompt the audience to think about and leave it in a really curious point and not have to necessarily give that satisfaction.' It's a great format."

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Launchpad streams on Disney+ on May 28, 2021.