Small World Films is a Los Angeles production company amplifying authentic Latino voices through powerful, personal storytelling.
We push for true representation on screen: characters who choose who they become, not who the world expects them to be. Every story deserves to be heard and celebrated.
A celebrated Russian performer wakes from a stroke unable to walk, speak or sing. When everything that defines you is taken away, what remains?
Directed by Lauro Rocha · Written by Ian Boisvert · Produced by Yan Fisher · With Alex Sparrow
Mexico City, 1971. A lonely secretary who lives for romance comics goes looking for her missing neighbor, and crosses paths with a young enforcer hunting the same woman, as student protests are crushed in the streets.
From the novel by Silvia Moreno-Garcia · Rights held by Small World Films
Mexicali, 1913. After killing her abusive husband, Valentina flees across the border and builds an empire of vice, while hunting the man who killed her parents.
Created by Hermes Lopez, Sergio Siruela, Lauro Rocha & Max Giacomelli
Victoria grew up crossing the border to school. Now she lives in the Smiths’ pool house in Rancho Santa Fe, and the voice in her head says to change everything.
Written by Lauro Rocha & Greer Ellison
A desert highway, a failing motel, a plasma clinic and a girl who dreams of her own submarine. Porous borders and the lengths we go to escape ourselves.
From the book by Rod Val Moore
On Western Avenue in East Hollywood, a 24-hour adult cinema has quietly become a second home. Regulars come back night after night, not for what’s on the screen, but for a room where nobody judges who you are. Told through the people who found family there, including two former celebrity stylists, the film asks what keeps a place like this alive when everything can be watched on a phone.
Shot on 16mm and low-light digital · Fiscally sponsored by the International Documentary Association
your background is where you come from. it doesn’t decide where you go.
Hollywood asked us to dilute who we are. We do the opposite: keep every place, language and history you carry, and hold many selves within one. We make films with and for the Latino and Latinx community, for young adults and whole families.
You are more than your nationality, religion or orientation.
Identity is a process, not a finished product.
We give the framework. The story stays theirs.
One family’s story can reach every audience.
White noise spreads its energy evenly. Pink noise has a more natural, balanced flow. That is how we approach every film: a look that is consistent and recognizable, yet flexible enough to serve each story without imposing on it.
We develop and produce our own projects, from optioned novels to original series, and we partner with artists who have a genuine vision, giving them the tools, guidance and backing to bring it to the screen. The story stays theirs.
features · series · documentaries · reality · development · casting · packaging
Behind the scenes of Abel (2024), a film by Dekel Berenson & Paul Wesley, produced with Small World Films.
A 17-year-old first-generation Mexican-American finds comfort in his aging father’s embrace as the two reconnect through shared grief.
A film by Dekel Berenson & Paul Wesley · With Joshua Rivera and Daniel Mora · Produced by Lucan Toh, Lauro Rocha, Babak Anvari and Andrew Carlberg
Directed by Kailey Wolf · Director of photography Pip White · Produced by Small World Films
Born in Los Angeles, raised between Baja California and San Diego. SDSU and AFI Conservatory. Executive producer of Berlinale winner Butterfly Kisses; director of Will Power. Fourteen producing credits since 2015.
Founder of FISHCORB Films in Los Angeles and Barcelona. Credits include Ben-Hur, Papillon and Let It Snow.
Co-productions, writers and directors with a project, and investors.
Lauro Rocha on IMDb →