Two Latinx directors, Victoria Rivera and Iliana Sosa, have been announced as recipients of the IFP (Independent Filmmaker Project) Week Filmmaker Awards, which took place September 20-25. IFP Week, in its 42nd edition, is a week of meetings, panels, seminars, and networking opportunities dedicated to connecting compelling independent big screen, small screen, and audio creators to industry that can propel their projects and careers forward.
The Goldcrest Award for complimentary ADR sessions went to Malpelo, the debut feature project by New York-based Colombian writer-director Rivera, and producer Camila Zavala. The film tells the story of a headstrong female free-diver who makes the perilous voyage to Malpelo Island to track hammerhead sharks, aboard a fishing boat with an all-male crew who prove to be as dangerous as the predators she’s after.
Rivera’s award-winning short films have screened at Telluride Film Festival, Tribeca Film Festival and Palm Springs Shortfest, where she was awarded a Jury Award in 2019 for Night Swim. In 2018 the Directors Guild of America awarded her the Student Film Award for Verde. In addition to the IFP Week Award, Malpelo had received a screenwriting grant by the Sloan Foundation, it has been supported by Film Independent’s Producing Lab, Fast Track Financing Market and Rivera has been selected as a 2020 Screenwriting and Directing Lab Fellow.
The Filmflow Award of a deliverables fulfillment package was presented to Lo que dejamos atrás by director and producer Sosa, director and producer). The film follows Julián, who has been making a monthly, 17-hour bus trip to see his children, ever since they moved to the US. However at 89, Julián is unable to travel, and builds a new house in hopes that it might bring his kids back home.
Los Angeles-based Sosa is a filmmaker born and raised in El Paso, Texas to Mexican immigrant parents. She studied documentary filmmaking at the University of Buenos Aires during her undergraduate career. Additionally, she holds an MFA in film directing and production from UCLA where she wrote and directed several shorts that have played at numerous festivals. Her thesis film, Child of the Desert, won Best Short Film and the Texas Award at the 2012 Oscar qualifying USA Film Festival. She recently adapted and directed the independent feature, Detained in the Desert, based on Josefina Lopez’s play by the same name.
Sosa is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Graduate Opportunity Fellowship from UCLA, a Steven Bochco Fellowship, the Edie and Lew Wasserman Fellowship, the Hollywood Foreign Press Award, the Carroll Sax Award, and the National Hispanic Foundation of the Arts Scholarship.
