Winners





Best Film:
TRENQUE LAUQUEN
by Laura Citarella, Argentina
Best Director:
CHILE ‘76
by Manuela Martelli, Chile
Best First Fiction Film:
I HAVE ELECTRIC DREAMS / TENGO SUEÑOS ELÉCTRICOS
by Valentina Maurel, Costa Rica
Best Documentary:
THE TRIAL / EL JUICIO
by Ulises de la Órden, Argentina
Best U.S. Latinx Film:
STORY AVE
by Aristotle Torres
The winners of the 14th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards were announced on Tuesday,
January 9, 2024 at a special ceremony at Film at Lincoln Center.
Cinema Tropical’s programs are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.
Cinema Tropical Awards Producer: Juan Pedro Agurcia.
Cinema Tropical announces its annual list of the Best Latin American Films of the Year, comprising 25 titles from twelve different countries that the organization has selected as the best of 2023.
Featuring productions from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Venezuela, the films selected will compete for the 14th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards in the categories of Best Film, Best Director, and in some cases, Best First Film.
The New York-based non-profit organization has also unveiled the seven nominated films that will compete for the Best US Latinx Film.
The winners of the 14th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards will be announced at a ceremony on Tuesday, January 9, 2024 at Film at Lincoln Center in New York City.
All of the films under consideration had a minimum runtime of 60 minutes and premiered between May 1, 2022 and April 30, 2023.
LATIN AMERICAN FILMS
(in alphabetical order):
ANHELL69
Theo Montoya, Colombia
ARGENTINA, 1985
Santiago Mitre, Argentina
BLANQUITA
Fernando Guzzoni, Chile
CALLS FROM MOSCOW / LLAMADAS DESDE MOSCÚ
Luis Alejandro Yero, Cuba
CHILE ‘76 / 1976
Manuela Martelli, Chile
THE CASTLE / EL CASTILLO
Martín Benchimol, Argentina
THE ECHO / EL ECO
Tatiana Huezo, Mexico
THE ETERNAL MEMORY / LA MEMORIA INFINITA
Maite Alberdi, Chile
THE FACE OF JELLYFISH / EL ROSTRO DE LA MEDUSA
Melisa Liebenthal, Argentina
HERBARIA
Leandro Listorti, Argentina
HOME IS SOMEWHERE ELSE
Carlos Hagerman and Jorge Villalobos, Mexico
HUESERA: THE BONE WOMAN / HUESERA
Michelle Garza Cervera, Mexico
I HAVE ELECTRIC DREAMS / TENGO SUEÑOS ELÉCTRICOS
Valentina Maurel, Costa RIca
THE KINGS OF THE WORLD / LOS REYES DEL MUNDO
Laura Mora, Colombia
THE KLEZMER PROJECT / ADENTRO MÍO ESTOY BAILANDO
Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann, Argentina
MY IMAGINARY COUNTRY / MI PAÍS IMAGINARIO
Patricio Guzmán, Chile
NOTES FOR A FILM / NOTAS PARA UNA PELÍCULA
Ignacio Agüero, Chile
OUR MOVIE / NUESTRA PELÍCULA
Diana Bustamante, Colombia
THE PUNISHMENT / EL CASTIGO
Matías Bize, Chile
RAMONA
Victoria Linares Villegas, Dominican Republic
RULE 34 / REGRA 34
Júlia Murat, Brazil
SILENT WITNESSES / MUDOS TESTIGOS
Luis Ospina and Jerónimo Aterhortúa, Colombia
TRENQUE LAUQUEN
Laura Citarella, Argentina
THE TRIAL / EL JUICIO
Ulises de la Orden, Argentina
TÓTEM
Lila Avilés, Mexico
U.S. LATINX FILMS
(in alphabetical order):
EL EQUIPO
Bernardo Ruiz
GOING VARSITY IN MARIACHI
Alejandra Vasquez and Sam Osborn
HUMMINGBIRDS
Silvia Del Carmen Castaños and Estefanía “Beba” Contreras
MUTT
Vuk Lungulov-Klotz
SANSÓN AND ME
Rodrigo Reyes
STORY AVE
Aristotle Torres
YOU WERE MY FIRST BOYFRIEND
Cecilia Aldarondo
LATIN AMERICAN CINEMA JURY
Monica Castillo is a critic, journalist, programmer, and curator based in New York City. She is the Senior Film Programmer at the Jacob Burns Film Center and a contributor to RogerEbert.com. Previously, she curated for the Paley Center for Media, and her work has appeared in NPR, the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Colorado Public Radio, NBC News, The Wrap, Remezcla, Elle Magazine, Marie Claire, and Vulture among others. She is a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists, the Online News Association, and the Critics Choice Association.
Mara Fortes is a film and media researcher and curator. Her research interests include media archaeology, experimental and expanded cinema, sound studies, and queer media. She has curated programs for different institutions and festivals, including the Reina Sofia Museum, La Otra Bienal, REDCAT, and the Center for Digital Culture in Mexico City, where she headed the audiovisual division Cine más allá (Cinema Beyond). Since 2003, she has worked in film distribution and exhibition, starting at Women Make Movies, and later programming for various film festivals, including the Morelia, Ambulante, and CUORUM. Since 2014 she has worked for the Telluride Film Festival, where she is currently Senior Curator. Her publications include the books Chris Marker Inmemoria, El cine como arte subversivo by Amos Vogel (both edited with Lorena Gómez Mostajo), and Historias de la noche (co-authored with Fabiola Torres-Alzaga). In 2021 she helped create and co-hosted the public television program 41 Tropiezos de la heteronorma en México, a show devoted to LGBTQ+ figures in Mexico’s cultural and social history.
María Paula Lorgia is a researcher and curator of film and visual arts. She holds a Master of Arts in Media Studies with an emphasis in Documentary Studies from The New School University in New York City. She is currently the artistic director of the SDLFF -San Diego Latino Film Festival in the United States. She also works as a creative director at the Tulpa audiovisual platform and as a film professor at the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the Universidad de los Andes. She worked for nine years at the Cinemateca de Bogotá, Colombia, as head curator, where she curated retrospectives of authors such as Barbara Hammer, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Roberto Minervini, Marlon Riggs, Sarah Maldoror, Luis Ospina, among others. She has been part of the jury for the Teddy Award at the Berlinale, the Dortmund Women's Film Festival in Germany, the Ceará de Fortaleza Ibero-American Film Festival in Brazil, and the Mar de Plata International Film Festival, among others.
Marian Luntz, a native New Yorker who was in the first coeducational class at Dartmouth College, has worked in the film and media arts field for over four decades. After positions with Kino International and the Independent Feature Project, she moved to Houston as Director of Exhibition at the Southwest Alternate Media Project (SWAMP). Since 1990 she has been the Film Curator at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, programming over 200 screenings annually and overseeing the museum’s circulating collection of films by the legendary photographer and filmmaker, Robert Frank. Marian has served on numerous juries, panels, and boards, and was named one of Houston’s “Pioneering Women in Media."
Manuel Andrés Santini is a film worker with over 15 years experience in film exhibiting organizations and festivals in New York, Qatar, and the Netherlands. His focus has been primarily on operational and programming teams having held senior roles at the New York Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival and the Doha Film Insitute. Puerto Rico born/Brooklyn based, Manuel is a graduate of Columbia University's Film Studies Program and served on the FLC bargaining committee which successfully attained the FLC Union's first collective bargaining agreement in 2021. He currently serves as Senior Manager, Programming at Film at Lincoln Center in New York City.
US LATINX CINEMA JURY