The Global Film Initiative announced today the 11 new recipients awarded production funds for the Initiative's Winter 2013 granting cycle, including two film projects from Colombia and one project from Ecuador and Argentina each.
Directed by Oscar Ruiz Navia, from Colombia is Los Hongos, in which two disaffected graffiti artists wander the city of Cali together, rendering their hopes and desires on the walls they pass and in the people they meet.
The second film chosen from Colombia directed by José Luis Rugeles, is Marìa, about a 13-year-old guerilla fighter in Colombia's decades-long armed conflict who must choose a new path for herself--and her unborn child--while on a mission to hide her commander's infant baby.
Historia del miedo / History of Fear, directed by Benjamin Naishtat, from Argentina, tells the story of gardener of a gated suburban community who resents a makeshift camp growing beyond the fence, as a summer blackout gives way to an atmosphere of apprehension.
From Ecuador comes Saudade (pictured) directed by Juan Carlos Donoso Gómez. As Miguel and his friends prepare to graduate high school during Ecuador's 1999 banking crisis, the country and his family come to respective crossroads, throwing his own future into turmoil.
Founded in 2002 to create global understanding, empathy and connectivity through film, the initiative has awarded at least 15 awards fifteen to twenty grants per year. Of up to $10,000 each, the grant js given to filmmakers whose work exhibits a unique and powerful narrative.
A past recipient was Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge's So Much Water / Tanta Agua which has gone on to successfully navigate the festival circuit, awarded Best First Feature at the 2013 Guadalajara International Film Festival; FIPRESCI at the 2013 Cartagena International Film Festival; Official Selection of the 2013 Berlin International Film Festival (world premiere) to name a few.
