Jhonny Hendrix's CANDELARIA Tops Venice Days

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Candelaria, the third feature film by Colombian director Jhonny Hendrix Hinestroza has won the top prize for Best Film at Venice Days, the Venice Film Festival's independently run section, with a cash prize of 20,000.

Set in Cuba during the economic crisis in the 1990s, the jury described Candelaria as “one of those rare films that exudes generosity and warmth to the audience by showing a non-conventional way of rediscovering love between two elderly people who are struggling to survive in Cuba.”

During the nineties, the world is changing drastically and Cuba, the island of the embargo, is drowning in rum and choking on hunger and cigars. In this grim landscape, the lives of Candelaria (64), and Victor Hugo (63), a couple who stays together out of inertia, take a surprising turn the day Candelaria finds a Hi8 camcorder. With this peculiar object, they look at each other, caress each other, and love each other once again. But this unexpected happiness, sweet as it is, is only the beginning of the end.