Latina filmmaker Alina Montero has joined the roster of Easy Mondays for exclusive U.S. spot representation, her first affiliation in this marketplace. The association with the production company began earlier this year when Easy Mondays put Montero up for a Cholula campaign via agency Fitzco. After successfully winning and executing the project together, Easy Mondays founder/EP Asori Soto offered Montero a place on the company’s roster, alongside directors and teams Biceps, Rocio Crudo, Luis Gerard, Kristian Mercado, Peter & Annie, and Beatriz Sanchez.
Montero’s work spans such brands as Coca-Cola, Corona, Google, KFC, Kraft-Heinz and Toyota, among others. “Alina is a multi-faceted talent, who brings great energy and passion to her work. From her treatments, to the personal investment on set, and her collaborative spirit, Alina excels,” said Soto. In terms of Cholula, he added, “With her background in documentaries, Alina brings a unique perspective to the marriage of lifestyle and food. We had a strong feeling she’d be perfect for the job, which turned out to be true.”
“Having representation with Easy Mondays is remarkable for me because it is a company with minority roots making it big in the general market,” Montero shared. “That’s the trajectory I’m pursuing, too. Their fresh approach, careful curation of projects, and attractive directors’ pool got me super excited about the idea of working together!”
Born into a filmmaking family (her father is the well-known Mexican director Rafael Montero), Montero grew up in Mexico City, and spent summers in the Southern U.S., where family and work led her to divide her time among Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico. Culturally speaking, Montero said, “We Mexicans share, rebuild and reinterpret what already exists in our culture to make something new without losing our roots. I inherited my cooking lineage from my grandmother and my film lineage from my father. For me, this game of creation and recreation comes with making hybrid films, where fiction and reality fuse.”
Of her filmmaking style, Montero explained, “I love working with real people and in real places, but I also like to add a warm, humorous, poetic, or fictional twist via the magic of cinema: a beam of light, the perfect smile, a slow push-in, or maybe just a quiet and contemplative moment that culminates in a burst of emotion. As a child, it was not a mystery for me how films were shot fragmented and then knitted in the editing room. But the art of making an audience feel still remains a fascinating enigma to me. There’s no potion to achieve that. You must keep learning and experimenting to perfect your craft and make it richer. I’m constantly enhancing what I started learning since I first put a foot on set as a baby.”
Montero concluded, “I’m honored and grateful to have this beautiful Cholula project as my entrance to the American market, teaming up with a terrific, progressive, and new-fashioned company such as Easy Mondays.”
