WINNERS
Best Feature Film:
NEON BULL (Boi Neon, Gabriel Mascaro, Brazil)
Best Documentary Film:
TEMPESTAD (Tatiana Huezo, Mexico)
Best First Film:
SANTA TERESA AND OTHER STORIES (Santa Teresa y otras historias,
Nelson Carlos de los Santos, Dominican Republic/Mexico)
Best Director, Feature Film:
Arturo Ripstein, BLEAK STREET (La calle de la amargura, Mexico)
Best Director, Documentary Film:
Maya Goded, PLAZA DE LA SOLEDAD (Mexico)
Best U.S. Latino Film:
JACQUELINE (ARGENTINE) (Bernando Britto, USA)
Special Mention, U.S. Latino Film:
LOS SURES (Diego Echevarría, USA)
The winners of the 7th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards were announced on Friday, January 13, 2017 at a special ceremony at the 15th Floor Conference Center of The New York Times headquarters in New York City.
The Cinema Tropical Awards are presented in partnership with The New York Times Company’s Latino Network, and the Museum of the Moving Image; and are made possible with the support of Vilma Vale-Brennan, and the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York. Hotel Sponsor: Hôtel Americano; Media Sponsor: Remezcla; Wine Sponsor: Wines of Chile; Beer Sponsor: Cusqueña.
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 Andrea Betanzos, Clementina Mantellini, Mara Behrens,
Tatiana García-Altagracia and Carlos Rossini.
NOMINATIONS
Best Fiction Film
- BLEAK STREET (La calle de la amargura, Arturo Ripstein, Mexico)
- EL MOVIMIENTO (Benjamín Naishtat, Argentina)
- EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (El abrazo de la serpiente, Ciro Guerra, Colombia)
- I PROMISE YOU ANARCHY (Te prometo anarquía, Julio Hernández Cordón, Mexico)
- NEON BULL (Boi Neon, Gabriel Mascaro, Brazil)
Best Director, Fiction Film
- Federico Veiroj, THE APOSTATE (El apóstata, Uruguay)
- Arturo Ripstein, BLEAK STREET (La calle de la amargura, Mexico)
- Ciro Guerra, EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT (El abrazo de la serpiente, Colombia)
- Nelson Carlo de los Santos, SANTA TERESA AND OTHER STORIES (Santa Teresa y otras historias, Dominican Republic/Mexico)
- Marília Rocha, WHERE I GROW OLD (A cidade onde envelheco, Brazil)
Best First Film
- LAND AND SHADE (La tierra y la sombra, César Augusto Acevedo, Colombia)
- OSCURO ANIMAL (Felipe Guerrero, Colombia)
- SANTA TERESA AND OTHER STORIES (Santa Teresa y otras historias, Nelson Carlo de los Santos, Dominican Republic/Mexico)
- SIEMBRA (Ángela Osorio and Santiago Lozano, Colombia)
- WHERE I GROW OLD (A cidade onde envelheco, Marília Rocha, Brazil)
Best Documentary
- DAMIANA KRYYGI (Alejandro Fernández Mouján, Argentina)
- THE MAN WHO SAW TO MUCH (El hombre que vio demasiado, Trisha Ziff, Mexico)
- PLAZA DE LA SOLEDAD (Maya Goded, Mexico)
- TEMPESTAD (Tatiana Huezo, Mexico)
- THE WIND KNOWS I'M COMING BACK HOME (El viento sabe que vuelvo a casa, José Luis Torres Leiva, Chile)
Best Director, Documentary
- Carlos Nader, JL'S PASSION (A Paixão de JL, Brazil)
- Maya Goded, PLAZA DE LA SOLEDAD (Mexico)
- Iván Osnovikoff and Bettina Perut, SURIRE (Chile)
- Tatiana Huezo, TEMPESTAD (Mexico)
- José Luis Torres Leiva, THE WIND KNOWS I'M COMING HOME (El viento sabe que vuelvo a casa, Chile)
Best U.S. Latino Film
- H.O.M.E. (Daniel Maldonado, USA)
- JACQUELINE (ARGENTINE) (Bernardo Britto, USA)
- LOS SURES (Diego Echevarria, USA)
- LUCHA MEXICO (Alex Hammond, Ian Markiewicz, USA)
- WHEN TWO WORLDS COLLIDE (Heidi Brandenburg, Mathew Orzel, producer: Taira Akbar, USA/Peru)
FICTION JURY
Fábio Andrade is a film critic, musician and filmmaker, with works as director, screenwriter, editor and sound editor. He's the editor of Cinética, a bilingual online film criticism magazine from Brazil, and has worked with filmmakers such as Paula Gaitán, Eryk Rocha, Thomas Elsaesser and others.
Ela Bittencourt is a film critic, programmer and writer, currently based in São Paulo. Her essays and interviews have appeared in various film and art publications, including Artforum, Cineaste, Film Comment, Frieze, and Sight & Sound Magazine. As curator, Bittencourt has organized retrospectives at the True/False Film Festival, the São Paulo International Film Festival, and at the Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil. She has taught essay writing at Columbia University, from which she holds M.A. and M.F.A. degrees, as well as film. She currently serves as the editorial director of a New York based film website and screening series, Kinoscope, and as a member of the selection committee for É Tudo Verdade / It’s All True International Documentary Film Festival.
Eric Hynes is Associate Curator at Museum of the Moving Image. Additionally, he is a film journalist and cultural critic. His writing has appeared in various major media outlets such as The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Slate, The Village Voice, Time Out New York, Film Comment, Reverse Shot, Sight & Sound and Indiewire, among other outlets.
NON-FICTION JURY
Michael Gibbons is Director of Digital Platforms at Film Society of Lincoln Center, where for over five years he has overseen the online growth of organization, the New York Film Festival, and the award-winning magazine, Film Comment. He worked for many years as a producer at several of Brazil's leading film and art institutions, including the São Paulo Biennial, Cinemateca Brasileira, and It's All True - International Documentary Film Festival and was on the selection committee for the São Paulo International Short Film Festival.
Toby Lee is Assistant Professor in the Department of Cinema Studies. A practicing artist, she works across a variety of media including video, installation, performance and drawing. Her work has been been exhibited at the Locarno Film Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, Museum of the Moving Image (NYC), and the 2014 Whitney Biennial. At Harvard, she was a member of the Sensory Ethnography Lab. She is the recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the Dan David Foundation, the Film Study Center at Harvard University, and the Flaherty Film Seminar. From 2012 to 2014, she was the Director of the Collaborative Studio program at UnionDocs: Center for Documentary Art in Brooklyn, NY.
Ruth Somalo is a filmmaker, programmer and researcher based in New York. She is 2017's Flaherty NYC Winter Series Programmer at Anthology Film archives, Associate Programmer at DOC NYC and the co-programmer of the symposium The Limit of Our Gaze: Women Filmmakers and Contemporary Documentary in Spain at KJCC. Her video work has been shown in cinemas, festivals and museums nationally and abroad, including the Verdi Cinemas, Contemporary Art Center Matadero de Madrid, San Sebastian International Film Festival, Cinema du Réel, ADFF, CCCB (L’Alternativa), Documentamadrid, MOMA PS1 (Expo1) and at the EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam (Spanish Cinema Without Fear). Ruth is the founder and director of Horns and Tails Productions.
U.S. LATINO JURY
Originally from Mexico City, film journalist Carlos Aguilar has written for outlets such as Indiewire, SydneysBuzz, Movie Maker Magazine, Creative Screenwriting, and Variety Latino. In 2014, Carlos Aguilar was chosen as one of six young film critics to partake in the first Roger Ebert Fellowship organized by the Sundance Institute and Indiewire.
Manuel Betancourt is a New York City-based writer, editor, and critical thinker interested in all things media and pop culture. He's a regular contributor to The Film Experience, Remezcla, Slant Magazine, and his work has been featured in Film Comment, Film Quarterly, Model View Culture, and PopMatters.
Cynthia López is the former Commissioner of the New York City Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment. She joined the City of New York from American Documentary | POV, serving as executive vice president and co-executive producer of the award-winning PBS documentary series. López is the founding chairperson of the board of directors of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP), was named by People en Español’s 25 Most Powerful Women, The Imagen Foundation’s Top 20 Most Influential Latinos in Entertainment in 2013 and 2014, and Variety’s Top 50 New York Entertainment Elite. She is the recipient of 11 National News & Documentary Emmy Awards.
