After more than four decades of building one of Chicago’s most beloved cultural institutions, ILCC Founder and Executive Director Pepe Vargas steps into a well-earned retirement.
There are people who change a room when they walk in. And then there are people who build the room itself — and invite an entire community inside.
Pepe Vargas is one of those people.
After more than 40 years of tireless dedication to Latino arts and culture in Chicago, our Founder and Executive Director is stepping down on June 30, 2026. His departure marks the end of a remarkable chapter — and the beginning of a legacy that will continue to shape this city for generations to come.
We want to take a moment to celebrate him, to thank him, and to wish him the very best in this new and well-deserved season of his life.
From humble beginnings to cultural icon
The story of the ILCC is, in many ways, the story of one man’s stubborn belief in the power of Latino culture to move, inspire, and unite.
It started in 1985 at St. Augustine College — 14 films projected against a wall, an audience of 500, and a young Pepe Vargas who saw not just a film festival, but a possibility. A possibility that Latino culture deserved a permanent, thriving, and celebrated place in Chicago’s artistic identity.
He seized that possibility with both hands and never let go.
What began as the Hispanic Film Festival grew into the Chicago Latino Film Festival, then into Chicago Latino Cinema, and ultimately into the International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago — a year-round, multidisciplinary arts organization that today reaches close to tens of thousands of people annually. The Chicago Latino Film Festival is now the longest continuously running Latino film festival in the country, having screened more than 5,000 films from across Latin America, Spain, Portugal, and the United States. Most of those films might never have been seen in Chicago without Pepe’s vision and persistence.
But he didn’t stop at film. Convinced that a community hungry for Latino cinema must also be hungry for other forms of expression, Pepe expanded the ILCC’s reach into music, theater, dance, visual arts, comedy, and culinary arts. He launched the Chicago Latino Music Series. He helped found the Chicago Latino Theater Alliance. He created spaces where Latin American and Iberian musicians could perform classical and experimental compositions that had rarely been heard in this city. He opened doors — and then walked through them alongside the artists and communities he served.
A Life That Earned Its Stories
Pepe Vargas did not arrive at this moment easily. Born in rural Colombia and shaped by a life of hard work and hardship, he traveled across a continent, survived political persecution in Argentina under military rule, crossed Central America and Mexico, and ultimately made his way to Chicago — where he earned a degree in Broadcast Journalism and Television/Film Production from Columbia College Chicago, worked as a busboy and a taxi driver, and contributed columns to the Chicago Sun-Times’ Spanish-language insert.
His story is not just the story of an immigrant who succeeded. It is the story of a man who took everything life threw at him and transformed it into fuel for something bigger than himself. He understood — deeply, personally — what it meant to feel unseen. And he spent the rest of his life making sure the Latino community in Chicago never had to feel that way.
What the People Who Know Him Best Have to Say
The tributes from those who have worked alongside Pepe say everything about the kind of leader — and the kind of human being — he is.
Board Chair Nancy Alonso, who has watched Pepe’s work firsthand for fifteen years, put it beautifully: he created spaces where Latin American filmmakers could proudly share their work, where musicians could fill a room with the sounds of their homelands, and where the traditions of an entire continent could be savored and celebrated. In doing so, she said, he shattered narrow stereotypes of Latino culture and replaced them with truth, artistry, and pride.
Board Treasurer Jonathan López called him an institution within Chicago’s arts community — a leader who has elevated countless voices, strengthened organizations, and enriched the life of this city.
Board Secretary Michael Angell described him simply as one of the great cultural leaders of Chicago: a dignified gentleman of the old school, passionate for his mission, welcoming to all partners, and a model for everyone who follows.
We could not agree more.
The Work Goes On
Pepe himself said it best: “I step down with the full confidence that I have assembled a team that is as committed and passionate about the ILCC’s mission as I still am.”
That confidence is well-placed. Deputy Executive Director Mateo Mulcahy — Pepe’s right-hand man, who has elevated the ILCC’s music, dance, and theater programming and played a pivotal role in the post-pandemic resurgence of the Chicago Latino Film Festival — has been appointed Acting Executive Director and will assume the Executive Director position effective June 30. A transition that won’t skip a beat.
The work Pepe built will continue. The 2026 Levitt VIBE Chicago Music Series is underway at Riis Park. Films in the Park and the Fourth Annual Chicago Latino Dance Festival are on the horizon. The CLFF just finished its best post-pandemic run ever — a 51% increase in sales and a 30% increase in attendance. The organization Pepe built is stronger than ever.
That is his final gift to us.
Thank You, Pepe
We celebrate you not just for what you built, but for why you built it — because you believed that Latino culture was not a niche, not a footnote, but a living, breathing, essential part of what makes Chicago great.
You proved it. You proved it with 42 film festivals, 25 years of music programming, four years of dance festivals, and more than five thousand films screened for audiences who came away knowing something true about the world.
You published your memoirs — Soy la vida que he vivido — and the title says it all. You are, indeed, the life you have lived. And what a life it has been.
From every filmmaker, musician, dancer, audience member, volunteer, board member, and community partner whose life you have touched: thank you, Pepe. We love you. We honor you. And we wish you all the health, peace, and joy you so richly deserve.
Que viva la cultura. Que viva Pepe Vargas.
The International Latino Cultural Center of Chicago continues its mission year-round. For more information on upcoming programming, visit latinoculturalcenter.org.
