PAST EDITIONS:

 

WINNERS

Best Feature Film:
JAUJA (Lisandro Alonso, Argentina)

Best Documentary Film:
INVASIÓN (Abner Benaim, Panama)

Best First Film:
IXCANUL (Jayro Bustamante, Guatemala)

Best Director, Feature Film:
Pablo Larraín , EL CLUB / THE CLUB (Chile)

Best Director, Documentary Film:
Betzabé García, LOS REYES DEL PUEBLO QUE NO EXISTE / KINGS OF NOWHERE (Mexico)

Best U.S. Latino Film:
MALA MALA (Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles)


The winners of the 6th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards were announced on Wednesday, January 20, 2016 at a special ceremony at the 15th Floor Conference Center of The New York Times headquarters in New York City. 

 

GALLERY

 

The Cinema Tropical Awards are presented in partnership with The New York Times
Company’s Latino Network, the Museum of the Moving Image, and National Association
of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP), and are made possible with the support
 of the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York and Full Circle Post. 

Media Sponsors: Remezcla and LatAm Cinema. Hotel Sponsor: Hôtel Americano.
Wine Sponsor: Wines of Chile.

Cinema Tropical’s programs are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.

Special thanks to Mara Behrens and Andrea Betanzos.

 
 

 

NOMINATIONS

Best Fiction Film

• THE CLUB / EL CLUB (Pablo Larraín, Chile, 2015) 
• JAUJA (Lisandro Alonso, Argentina/France, 2014) 
• LOS HONGOS (Óscar Ruiz Navia, Colombia/France/Argentina/Germany, 2014)
• THE PRINCESS OF FRANCE / LA PRINCESA DE FRANCIA (Matías Piñeiro, Argentina/USA, 2014)
• WHITE OUT, BLACK IN / BRANCO SAI, PRETO FICA (Adirley Queirós, Brazil, 2014)
 

Best Director, Fiction Film

• Gabriel Mascaro, AUGUST WINDS / VENTOS DE AGOSTO (Brazil, 2014) 
• Nicolás Pereda, THE ABSENT / LOS AUSENTES (Mexico, 2014)
• Pablo Larraín, THE CLUB / EL CLUB (Chile, 2015)
• Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas, SAND DOLLARS / DÓLARES DE ARENA (Dominican Republic/Mexico/Argentina, 2014)
• Paz Fábrega, VIAJE (Costa Rica, 2015)
 

Best First Film

• 600 MILES (Gabriel Ripstein, Mexico, 2015) 
• THE FIRE / EL INCENDIO (Juan Schnitman, Argentina, 2015)
• IXCANUL (Jayro Bustamante, Guatemala/France, 2015) 
• SHE COMES BACK ON THURSDAY / ELA VOLTA NA QUINTA (Andrés Novais Oliveira, Brazil, 2014) 
• VIDEOPHILIA (AND OTHER VIRAL SYNDROMES) / VIDEOFILIA (Y OTROS SÍNDROMES VIRALES) (Juan Daniel F. Molero, Peru, 2015)
 

Best Documentary

• A COMMITTEE CHRONICLE / CRÓNICA DE UN COMITÉ (José Luis Sepúlveda and Carolina Adriazola, Chile, 2014)
• IDENTIFICATION PHOTOS / RETRATOS DE IDENTIFICAÇAO (Anita Leandro, Brazil, 2014)
• INVASION / INVASIÓN (Abner Benaim, Panama, 2014)
• LAST CONVERSATIONS / ÚLTIMAS CONVERSAS (Eduardo Coutinho, Brazil, 2015) 
• MONTE ADENTRO (Nicolás Macario Alonso, Colombia/Argentina, 2014)
 

Best Director, Documentary

• Karina García Casanova, JUANICAS (Mexico, 2014) 
• Betzabé García, KINGS OF NOWHERE / LOS REYES DEL PUEBLO QUE NO EXISTE (Mexico, 2015)
• Maíra Bühler and Matias Mariani, I TOUCHED ALL YOUR STUFF / A VIDA PRIVADA DOS HIPOPÓTAMOS (Brazil, 2014) 
• Aldo Garay, THE NEW MAN / EL HOMBRE NUEVO (Uruguay, 2015) 
• Christopher Murray, PROPAGANDA (Chile, 2014)
 

Best U.S. Latino Film

• THE BOOK OF LIFE (Jorge Gutierrez, USA, 2014) 
• EAST SIDE SUSHI (Anthony Lucero, USA, 2014)
• MALA MALA (Antonio Santini and Dan Sickles, USA/Puerto Rico, 2014) 
• ME AND EARL AND THE DYING GIRL (Alfonso Gomez-Rejon USA, 2014) 
• WE LIKE IT LIKE THAT (Mathew Ramirez Warren, USA, 2014)

 

 

JURY

 

FICTION JURY

Paul Dallas is a Brooklyn-based writer, journalist, and programmer. He has contributed to Artforum, BOMB, Cinema Scope, Extra Extra, Film Comment, Filmmaker, IndieWire and Interview. He has organized screenings and series for Columbia University, Guggenheim Museum, Maylses Cinema, and Union Docs. He studied filmmaking at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and is a graduate of The Cooper Union's School of Architecture. He is a 2015 Robert Flaherty Fellow and a 2008 Schindler Fellow at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture in Los Angeles. Recently, he assisted on Michael Almereyda's new sci-fi drama Marjorie Prime, and is developing a narrative feature with director Frédéric Tcheng. 

 

Born in Rio de Janeiro, Sandra Kogut has lived and worked in Brazil, France and the USA first as an artist creating performance pieces and installations and then turning to documentary and fiction films. Her work has been featured at The Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum (New York), the Harvard Film Archive and the Forum des Images (Paris). Kogut’s first feature Mutum premiered at the Cannes Film Festival (Director’s Fortnight) and went on to numerous festivals including Toronto, Berlin, Rotterdam and others, receiving more than twenty awards worldwide. She recently premiered her most recent film Campo Grande at the Toronto Film Festival, for which she won the award for Best Director at the Havana Film Festival.

 

David Schwartz is Chief Curator at Museum of the Moving Image in New York, where he has worked since 1985. He is responsible for the Museum’s wide-ranging film screenings, including the First Look Festival –a showcase of groundbreaking international cinema– and is a key member of the exhibition planning team. He was the co-curator of the exhibition "What’s Up Doc? The Animation Art of Chuck Jones." Schwartz is also a visiting professor in Cinema Studies at Purchase College in the New York State University. 

 

NON-FICTION JURY

Amalia Córdova is a film curator, filmmaker and scholar specializing in indigenous film. She is the Assistant Director of New York University’s Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies and is the former Latin American Program Manager for the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian’s Film and Video Center, where she organized video tours, film festivals and international screenings. She has also been a panelist, moderator, selector and juror at international indigenous film festivals, including the Morelia International Film Festival and the CLACPI International Film and Video Festival of Indigenous Peoples.

 

Aaron Cutler is a film critic and programmer based in São Paulo. He has worked as a programming aide for the São Paulo International Film Festival and programmed or co-programmed retrospectives devoted to the filmmakers Lav Diaz, Heinz Emigholz, and Kira Muratova. Many of his film writings for outlets including Brooklyn Magazine, Cineaste, and Slant Magazine can be found at his website, The Moviegoer (http://aaroncutler.tumblr.com).

 

Dominic Davis currently works as Programmer for Rooftop Films festival in New York City. He has a degree in mass media studies and political science from the University of Kentucky. In 2011, he took a job with the film office of the Sundance Film Festival, where he discovered film programming as a profession. He has previously programmed for the American Museum of Natural History and its Margaret Mead Film Festival, and the Tribeca Film Festival. He has served on advisory panels and grant and film juries across the globe.

 

U.S. LATINO JURY

Vanessa Erazo has always been a big film fan. Growing up bilingual, she eventually discovered the rich variety of Latino films but noticed they were hard to find. The search for these movies led her to work for Latino film festivals in San Francisco, New York, and Mexico City. After receiving an M.A. in Latin American Studies from New York University, she served as the Documentary Programmer at the New York International Latino Film Festival and is now the Editor of the Film section at Remezcla. She is also the co-creator of LatinoBuzz, a weekly column on Indiewire, and Co-Director of Cinelandia, an online guide to Latino films playing across the U.S.

 

Dr. Michelle Leigh Farrell is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Fairfield University in Connecticut. She teaches Spanish and Portuguese language as well as Caribbean and Latin American film and literature. In her research Dr. Farrell focuses on the changing national film industries in twenty-first century Cuba, Venezuela and Brazil. She also researches the independent filmmakers who work beyond the state structures in these three countries. She is a recipient of the American Association of University Women Short-Term Publication Grant and a Summer Scholar-in-Residence at the NYU Faculty Research Network. Dr. Farrell is also a recipient of the American Philosophical Society Lewis and Clark Field Research Grant.

 

Diana Vargas is the Artistic Director of the Havana Film Festival New York and the founder and programmer for CortoCircuito/ShortCuts Latino Short Film Festival of New York. She is also a producer and media liaison with the CUNY-TV series Nueva York for which she has received two consecutive Emmys. She received several international awards for the documentary series Rostros y Rastros. As a journalist she has published in newspapers and magazines including Hoy (New York City), El Puente Latino, Kinetoscopio (Colombia) and La Opinión (Los Angeles). She also has served as juror in many international film festival and curated programs for different organizations in Latin America and U.S.

 

NOMINATING COMMITTEE

  • Fábio Andrade, Editor and film critic, Revista Cinética, Brazil

  • Juan Pablo Bastarrachea, Programmer, Cine Tonalá, Mexico

  • Consuelo Castillo, Project Coordinator, DOCTV Latinoamérica, Colombia

  • Fernando del Razo, Programmer, Riviera Maya Film Festival, Mexico

  • Vanessa Erazo, Film Editor, Remezcla, USA

  • Luis Gonzalez Zaffaroni, Executive Director, DocMontevideo, Uruguay

  • James Lattimer, programmer and film critic, Berlinale's Forum, Germany 

  • Alicia Morales, Executive Director, Lima Film Festival, Peru

  • Joel Poblete, journalist, film critic, and Programmer, SANFIC, Santiago, Chile

  • Andrea Stavenhagen, Delegate, San Sebastian Film Festival, Spain, and Coordinator, Impulso Morelia, Mexico

  • Charles Tesson, Artistic Director, Critics' Week, Cannes, France

  • Raúl Niño Zambrano, Programmer, International Documentary Film Festival - IDFA, Netherlands

 
 
 
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Cinema Tropical's programs are made possible with the support of the New York State Council on the Arts. They are also supported,
in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council,
the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.