ILCC Team

Mateo Mulcahy has served as Executive Director of the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago (ILCC) since July 1, 2026, succeeding Founder and Executive Director Pepe Vargas, who stepped down and retired after 42 years leading the organization. Mulcahy had served as the ILCC’s Deputy Executive Director since 2022, working closely alongside Vargas before assuming full leadership of the organization and its flagship event, the Chicago Latino Film Festival, now preparing for its 43rd edition in 2027.

A bilingual and bicultural Chicago native of Mexican and Irish descent, Mulcahy holds a B.A. in Spanish and International Development from Washington University in St. Louis, where his advocacy for the arts began more than four decades ago. Before joining the ILCC, he served as Director of Community Projects and Events at the Old Town School of Folk Music, where he built partnerships across diverse communities, organizations, and institutions, and oversaw the curation and production of more than 100 events annually, including the World Music Wednesday Series and the Chicago SquareRoots Festival. His work there also encompassed residency and international exchange programs, grant writing, and sponsorship development.

Since joining the ILCC in 2022, Mulcahy has doubled the organization’s programming, with particular growth in music and dance, including the launch of the Chicago Latino Dance Festival in 2023 and the Levitt VIBE Chicago Music Series in 2024. As Executive Director, he has outlined plans to structure the ILCC’s programming around seven pillars — film, music, dance, theater, visual arts, literary arts, and culinary arts — while building deeper partnerships with government agencies, community organizations, and universities, and developing new strategies to engage younger audiences.

Alejandro A. Riera is Publicity and Programming Manager for the Chicago Latino Film Festival (CLFF), a role that expands on nearly 15 years as the Festival’s Media Relations and Communications Manager. In addition to continuing to oversee all communications, content, and social media for CLFF, Riera is now directly involved in the feature film selection process and works alongside Artistic and Operations Director Sandra Bernal A. in scheduling the Festival’s selected lineup.

Riera has been part of Chicago’s Latino media and film landscape since 1988, when he and his wife moved to the city and he co-launched “Orgullo Latino,” a weekly newsmagazine series on the Chicago Access Network. He went on to spend a decade as the arts and entertainment reporter and film critic for ¡Exito!, the Chicago Tribune’s Spanish-language weekly, writing more than 3,000 pieces across theater, music, film, and television before the publication transitioned into Hoy in 2003. He later served as A&E Senior Editor for Hoy and as Editor-in-Chief of Café Media, a local multimedia communications startup.

Beyond CLFF, Riera has worked as publicity manager for the Chicago International Film Festival for 10 years and has contributed to the Gene Siskel Film Center’s Panorama Latinx initiative. He is a board member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and has interviewed major figures in film and the arts, including Guillermo del Toro, Alfonso Cuarón, Shakira, and Arturo Pérez-Reverte. His writing currently appears in Third Coast Review, the Chicago Reader, and his own Substack, alongside a monthly film column for Cinelandia.

Sandra Bernal A. is Artistic and Operations Director for the Chicago Latino Film Festival (CLFF), overseeing the Festival’s Features and Shorts Programming Committees as well as its Hospitality and Ticketing teams. She serves as the primary point of contact between filmmakers and the Festival and cultivates relationships with other film festivals, film-related organizations, and community stakeholders. Bernal joined CLFF four years ago as Hospitality Manager and spent the past two years as Programming Manager before stepping into her current role.

A cultural manager, brand developer, and communications professional with a background in public diplomacy, Bernal has worked with the British and Swedish governments in their respective embassies in Colombia, focusing on cultural exchange and international relations. She helped organize several high-profile events during that time, including the Prince of Wales’s 2014 visit to Colombia, Pope Francis’s 2017 visit, and the 32nd International Book Fair of Bogotá, held in 2021 with Sweden as country guest of honor.

Bernal holds a Master’s degree in Arts and Culture Management from the Rome Business School (2023-2024). She is also the owner of Saba – Cultural Networking, a Chicago-based consultancy through which she advises cultural institutions and nonprofit organizations on program development, strategy, and brand positioning.

Pepe Vargas is the founder of the Chicago Latino Film Festival and the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago (ILCC), and now serves as the organization’s Life Emeritus Director in recognition of the 42 years he spent building it from the ground up. Born and raised in La Mesa, a small town roughly two hours from Bogotá, Colombia, Vargas came to Chicago in 1980 and studied broadcast journalism at Columbia College Chicago, where he developed a passion for short films and documentaries.

In 1985, Vargas launched the Chicago Latino Film Festival with a modest lineup of 14 films. What began as Chicago Latino Cinema grew into a nonprofit organization, attaining that status in 1987, and eventually became the ILCC in 1999 as its programming expanded well beyond film. Under Vargas’s leadership, the Festival grew into the largest and longest continuously-running Latino film festival in the United States, having screened more than 4,500 films from Latin America, Spain, Portugal, and the U.S. across four decades. He was also one of four founders of the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance, alongside Carlos Hernández of the Puerto Rican Arts Alliance, extending his influence beyond film into Chicago’s broader Latino arts landscape.

Vargas has said he built the organization to combat racism and discrimination through art, and to give voice to a community defined by its diversity rather than flattened by it. That vision shaped not only the Festival but the ILCC’s full slate of programming, including the Chicago Latino Music Series, Film in the Parks, the Reel Film Club, and the Chicago Latino Dance Festival, many of which he built out in collaboration with successor Mateo Mulcahy, whom Vargas has called his “right-hand man.”

Vargas stepped down as Executive Director on June 30, 2026, passing leadership to Mulcahy on July 1. He is recognized as one of Chicago’s longest-standing Latino arts leaders, alongside figures like Carlos Tortolero of the National Museum of Mexican Art and the late Myrna Salazar of the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance. As Life Emeritus Director, Vargas remains part of the ILCC family he built, and looks forward to experiencing the organization’s events as a guest for the first time in over four decades.