We’re thrilled to announce the nine jury members that will select this year’s winners of the Cinema Tropical Awards, which will be announced in an online virtual ceremony on Tuesday, January 19 on Cinema Tropical’s Facebook Live. Six jurors will select three winners—for Best Film, Best Director, and Best First Film—in the Latin American cinema category, while three jury members will select the winner for Best U.S. Latinx Film. Check out all of the nominated films here: www.cinematropical.com/cinematropicalawards11
Latin American Cinema Jury:
Diana Cadavid is a Colombian/Canadian curator of film and new media, with wide experience in international film festivals. She's currently the Artistic Director of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF) and the Festival Internacional de Cine de Cali (FICCALI). Diana was responsible for the concept and film programming of LALIFF Connect 2020, the first Virtual Festival of the organization, in response to the crisis of the COVID 19 pandemic. Diana has also worked as Associate Director of Program and Industry for the Miami Film Festival (MFF), Director of Programming for the International Film Festival of Panama (IFF Panamá), and Programmer for the aluCine Film+Media Arts and Parkdale Film Festivals in Toronto. As a Programming Associate for eight editions of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) she provided effective support for Diana Sanchez, at the time, the Ibero-American Programmer of the festival. Diana has also produced and edited the short films Breathe the Night (2000), Bleiben (2006), Still Life with Echo (2008) and Define Solidarity (2013), directed by Álvaro Girón. She was the Production Manager for the feature film Mañana a esta hora (2016) by Lina Rodriguez.
Jordan Cronk is a film critic, programmer, and founder of the Acropolis Cinema screening series in Los Angeles. His writing has appeared in Artforum, Cinema Scope, Film Comment, frieze, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Reverse Shot, Sight & Sound, and more. He is a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association.
Tamara Falicov is Professor of the Department of Film and Media Studies and the Center of Latin American and Caribbean Studies and the Associate Dean for Research in the Arts and Humanities in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Kansas. Professor Falicov’s specialty is Latin American cinema. She is the recipient of a Fulbright scholarship to Argentina, the result of which is the book The Cinematic Tango: Contemporary Argentine Film (London: Wallflower Press/Columbia University Press, 2007) and Latin American Film Industries (London: Bloomsbury/BFI, 2019). She has written essays on co-productions, the cultural politics of Programa Ibermedia, Cine en construcción, and the role of European film funds for Global South filmmakers. She has given workshops on film festival funds and taught seminars in Colombia, Honduras, Guatemala, Panama and Portugal, and has been on film festival juries in Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Guatemala, among others.
Originally from Wales, Jim Kolmar is a Film Programmer and writer who curated features for South by Southwest Film Festival (SXSW) from 2009-2020, and where he continues to consult. His primary interest is international films, with a particular focus on Latin American, Caribbean and Latinx films. Since 2010, he curated the SXSW Global section for international films, and also served as a member of the inaugural selection committee for Festival Internacional de Cine Tulum (FICTU). He is currently guest programming US features for Portland International Film Festival (PIFF). Jim has worked with numerous local film organizations, including Cine Las Americas International Film Festival, Austin Asian American Film Festival, and Austin Film Society (AFS), where he programmed Austin’s first series of Welsh films in 2012. Jim is also a contributing writer for Ambulante Film Festival in Mexico, and has served on juries, panels and committees at events including BAFICI, Bogotá Audiovisual Market (BAM), CONNeXT, CPH:DOX, Docaviv, DocsDF, IDFA, IFFPanama, Krakow Film Festival, New Horizons, and Ventana Sur.
Chris Stults has been an associate curator in the Wexner Center for the Arts’ Film/Video Department, where he has organized screenings, festivals, and retrospectives ranging from Nelson Pereira dos Santos to Joe Dante. In 2012, he curated the touring series Cruzamentos: Contemporary Brazilian Documentary, the largest North American film survey on the topic and, along with Genevieve Yue, he co-curated the 2016 Flaherty NYC series “Wild Sounds,” exploring films about gender and voice. His writing has appeared in ArtForum, Cinema Scope, Film Comment, and the Viennale catalogue, among others.
Latinx Cinema Jury:
Kiko Martinez is the film editor at Remezcla. He earned his degree in journalism and has been writing reviews and articles on film since 2001 for a number of different newspapers and magazines around the U.S. Kiko is a member of the prestigious Broadcast Film Critics Association, which earns him a vote each year in the Critic’s Choice Awards. He is also a member of the Houston Film Critics Society and the Online Film Critics Society. Kiko contributes to a number of outlets including the San Antonio Current. His film reviews are featured on News4SA (NBC affiliate) and FoxSanAntonio.com (Fox affiliate).
Michèle Stephenson is a filmmaker, artist, and author who pulls from her Panamanian and Haitian roots, and experience as a human rights attorney to tell compelling, deeply personal stories that are created by, for, and about communities of color. In her film American Promise, Stephenson and her partner Joe Brewster tell the story of their son and his friend, two African-American boys whose struggles through the education system tell complicated truths about America’s struggle to come of age on issues of race, class, and opportunity. Stephenson’s film American Promise was nominated for three Emmys including Best Documentary. The film also won the Jury Prize at Sundance, and was selected for the New York Film Festival’s Main Slate Program. Her collaborative film series with New York Times Op-Docs, A Conversation on Race, won the 2016 Online Journalism Award for Commentary. Stephenson was awarded the Chicken & Egg Pictures Filmmaker Breakthrough Award and is a Guggenheim Fellow. Her most recent film, Stateless, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and was supported by the National Film Board of Canada and the Sundance Documentary Fund. Her community engagement accomplishments include the PUMA BritDoc Impact Award for a Film with the Greatest Impact on Society, and she is a Skoll Sundance Storytellers of Change Fellow. Her book, Promises Kept, written along with co-authors Joe Brewster and Hilary Beard, won an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work.
Barbara Vásconez is the Program Manager at New York Women in Film & Television. Before joining NYWIFT, she held the position of General Manager at the Quad Cinema for three years. She has worked for a variety of film festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival, Rooftop Films, Hamptons Film Festival, Montclair Film Festival, Mill Valley Film Festival, DOC NYC, and the Nantucket Film Festival. Her spare time is spent programming panels and creating unique community engagement opportunities for the New York Latino Film Festival. In 2019, she launched and founded the Ville Film Festival in Somerville, New Jersey. In 2020, she joined the Ecuadorian Film Festival as Co-Director. Her educational goals include working to develop film programs in New Jersey that improve film education for low income students. She works on amplifying the Latinx community and speaking on important issues like immigration and minimum wage. She is committed to the importance of film as a means of community engagement. Barbara has a degree in Film and Video Production from the School of Visual arts in NYC and holds a Business certificate from W.O.R.C in Philadelphia.
