The Los Angeles Film Festival has announced the winners for its 20th edition which includes some Latino winners. Damian John Harper, took home the inaugural LA Muse Award for Los Ángeles (pictured), a US/Mexico production. The film follows a 17-year old in a Zapotec community in Oaxaca as he prepares to make the perilous journey to the US. The film premiered at the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival and won the Best First Feature Award at the 2014 Festival Internacional de Cine en Guadalajara this past spring.
Dave Boyle’s Man From Reno (pictured right), co-starring veteran Latino actor Pepe Serna won the Narrative Award. The film about a Japanese author and a small town sheriff teaming up to solve a murder mystery in San Francisco was selected among the narrative films screened in competition.
The ensemble cast of newcomers of the American-Argentinean co-production film Recommended by Enrique, directed by Rania Attieh and Daniel García, won the award for Best Performance in the Narrative Competition. The film based on a bizarre true story focuses on an aspiring Hollywood actress working on a no budget horror flick trapped in a Texas border town.
The award for Best Documentary Short Film went to The Queen by Argentinean director Manuel Abromovich. The short follows a beauty queen enduring the pain of having wear massive headdress. When granting the award the jury stated “We found its use of unwavering perspective particularly unique and incredibly effective."
The 2014 Los Angeles Film Festival took place June 11-19.
