Asia Bonetto on the Importance of Diversity and Inclusion in the Film Industry

As a passionate, award-winning indie film producer, Asia Bonetto strongly believes that films have a voice. They allow her to communicate with people across the world and convey a message through cinematic language. While she is close to completing her BA from LMU, Los Angeles, she is also working on some inspiring film projects.

Asia Bonetto was raised in a small town in Northern Italy. The town called Noli in the province of Savona and it has a population of 2400 people, which is 45 minutes away from the city of Genoa. During her childhood, she watched movies that were quite complicated for her age with her mother. "When I was four years old, my favorite movie was Gone with the Wind," she said in her interview on Vigilantes Radio Live. While other kids would mostly watch cartoon films, she was interested in movies that were more real.

When she was a student at Santa Monica College, she was allowed to attend a 15-week filmmaking program in Italy. Every week, she would team up with other filmmakers to produce short films on diverse subjects. It was during this program that she learned the importance of diversity and inclusion in the film industry. According to her, diversity produces different perspectives for filmmaking.

Coming from a multicultural family also helped Asia Bonetto understand the importance of inclusiveness and diversity. While her mother's side is Belgian, her father's side is French, and she was born and raised in Italy. Moving to Los Angeles by herself when she was 16 was tough for her. However, she never gave up, knowing that it was the place where she could make things happen.

This made her stay on and grow stronger with every passing day. Her work as a film producer ranges from budgeting to establishing partnerships. Her film 'Broken Layers' premiered at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and was awarded Best Student Film at the Emerging Filmmaker Showcase.