In a small, casual ceremony at OKC Community College on March 27th, Cine Latino Film Festival co-founder Rogelio Almeida Jr. was presented with a formal congressional recognition for his years of work mentoring the next generation of young filmmakers with the Cine Latino Youth Film Institute.
After launching the festival now eleven years ago alongside co-founder Victor Caballero, the pair established the Youth Film Institute in 2017. Almeida has continued to manage and direct its education and support for high school and college-aged aspiring Latino filmmakers ever since.
Now, Almeida has been awarded an official congressional proclamation from Congressman Frank Lucas in recognition of those educational efforts. This proclamation caps off a successful eleventh installment of the festival that ran across the Calle dos Cinco area of Capitol Hill on March 21st and 22nd.
“He is a veteran and mentor and all-around wonderful human being who has over a decade made long-lasting impacts,” Laura Butler Claussen, district director for Rep. Lucas’s office, said of Almeida as she presented the award on the congressman’s behalf.
That same sentiment was shared by the assembled friends, family members, and guests present, which included figures from across the Oklahoma film community, including Cacky Poarch and Sunrise Tippeconnie of deadCenter, with whom Almeida and Cine Latino worked closely to establish the Film Institute.
“This is amazing,” Almeida said in addressing the small crowd gathered in OCCC’s Oklahoma Room. “I couldn’t have done this without the support of the community – of this community – that we are supposed to be serving. The whole reason that we started the Film Institute was to create opportunities for my community and for our people to have their voices heard on the big screen.”
Almeida spoke to me one-on-one briefly before the ceremony, and he told me about how successful this year’s festival was for all the attendees.
“All the filmmakers left with such a big smile on their faces and then just wanting to come back,” he said.” A couple of filmmakers even told me that they want to have the world premieres of their next projects here in Oklahoma City.”
But the possibilities of that happening as part of the Cine Latino Film Festival – or at least of Almeida himself being involved – seem to have recently changed.
“I don’t know if you read social media,” he told me, “but I made an announcement that I’m basically parting ways with Calle dos Cinco and Historic Capitol Hill.”
Since its inception, the Cine Latino Film Festival has been a close partner to the Capitol Hill District and the Calle dos Cinco cultural district within it, with the festival always taking place in Capitol Hill locations like the Yale Theatre and the Capitol Hill Library.
This year, the event even spread a bit further out through Capitol Hill, with filmmakers taking the stage at Resonant Head for the first time for a panel discussion.
But in a surprise announcement on Facebook on March 25th, following the close of the 2025 installment of the film festival, Almeida declared that he would no longer be connected to Capitol Hill, owing to disagreements and complications with district leadership, in particular with district director Gloria Torres.
In that post, Almeida alleged that Torres, who happily shared the stage with Almeida for announcements and thanks during the festival’s opening night on March 21st, personally intervened to prevent Congressman Lucas from presenting Almeida with the proclamation award that same evening.
“I only found out about this on Monday,” Almeida told me before the proclamation ceremony began. “As it turns out, this was supposed to be presented on Friday during the festival, and that’s one of the reasons I’m parting ways with Calle dos Cinco.”
Multiple attempts by Free Press to reach Torres for comment and confirmation were unsuccessful, and messages were not returned.
As for Almeida, he’s not yet sure about the future of Cine Latino or his own future with the filmmaking community of OKC, but he knows that he’s going to be a part of it and that he’ll continue working to educate and support the next generations of Latino filmmakers.
“I just want to step away from all that negativity and to just keep doing what I’ve been doing, which is championing film education,” he told me. “And if we end up with another film festival, I’d be happy if that opportunity crosses my path. I’ve already had calls with deadCenter and with Rodeo Cinema about maybe partnering up on things. But we’ll see.”
For now, whether or not the Cine Latino festival continues without him or whether he ends up launching a new festival or a newly dedicated, Latino-focused arm of an existing festival, Almeida said he has only one thing on his mind.
“At the moment,” he told me, “I just want to focus on the Institute.”
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Brett Fieldcamp has been covering arts, entertainment, news, housing, and culture in Oklahoma for nearly 15 years, writing for several local and state publications. He’s also a musician and songwriter and holds a certification as Specialist of Spirits from The Society of Wine Educators.