For the first time in this 4th annual edition the Cinema Tropical Awards will present a prize to the Best U.S. Latino Film of the Year as a way to build bridges between Latin American cinema and the film productions made in the United States by Latinos. Five films, both fiction and documentary have been nominated in this category as the most outstanding American film made by a Latino director.
U.S Latino Film Nominees
AMERICAN PROMISE
A film by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson (USA, 2013)
Nominated for Best U.S. Latino Film
Winner of the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, American Promise is a documentary film directed by Michèle Stephenson, a New York resident of Haitian-Panamanian heritage, and her husband Joe Brewster. The film spans 13 years as the couple, middle-class African-American parents in Brooklyn, turn their cameras on their son, Idris, and his best friend, Seun, who make their way through one of the most prestigious private schools in the country. Chronicling the boys' divergent paths from kindergarten through high school graduation at Manhattan's Dalton School, this provocative, intimate documentary presents complicated truths about America's struggle to come of age on issues of race, class and opportunity.
FILLY BROWN
A film by Youssef Delara and Michael D. Olmos (USA, 2012)
Nominated for Best U.S. Latino Film
Filly Brown is an inspiring and gritty portrait of a young artist striving to find her voice and seize her dreams without compromise. Majo Tonorio, aka, "Filly Brown" is a young, raw hip-hop artist from Los Angeles who spits rhymes from the heart. With a mother in prison and a father struggling to provide for his daughters, Majo knows that a record contract could be her family’s ticket out. But when a record producer offers her a shot at stardom, she is suddenly faced with the prospect of losing who she is as an artist, as well as the friends who helped her reach the cusp of success. Directed by Youssef Delara and Michael Olmos, Filly Brown stars Gina Rodriguez, Lou Diamond Phillips, Edward James Olmos and the legendary Mexican-American singer Jenni Rivera in her final on-screen performance.
MOSQUITA Y MARI
A film by Aurora Guerrero (USA, 2012)
Nominated for Best U.S. Latino Film
Mosquita y Mari, Aurora Guerrero's assured directorial debut, is a coming of age story that focuses on a tender friendship between two young Chicanas. Yolanda and Mari are growing up in Huntington Park, Los Angeles and have only known loyalty to one thing: family. When Mari moves in across the street from Yolanda, they maintain their usual life routine, until an incident at school thrusts them into a friendship and into unknown territory. As their friendship grows, a yearning to explore their strange yet beautiful connection surfaces. Lost in their private world of unspoken affection, lingering gazes, and heart-felt confessions of uncertain futures, Yolanda's grades begin to slip while Mari's focus drifts away from her duties at a new job. Mounting pressures at home collide with their new-found connection, forcing them to choose between their obligations to others and staying true to themselves.
REPORTERO
A film by Bernardo Ruiz (USA, 2012)
Nominated for Best U.S. Latino Film
A timely and urgent film, Reportero follows a veteran reporter and his colleagues at Zeta, a Tijuana-based independent newsweekly, as they stubbornly ply their trade in one of the deadliest places in the world for members of the media. In Mexico, more than 50 journalists have been slain or have vanished since December 2006, when President Felipe Calderón came to power and launched a government offensive against the country’s powerful drug cartels and organized crime. As the drug war intensifies and the risks to journalists become greater, will the free press be silenced?
WONDER WOMEN! THE UNTOLD STORY OF AMERICAN SUPERHEROINES
A film by Kristy Guevara-Flanagan (USA, 2012)
Nominated for Best U.S. Latino Film
Krisry Guevara-Flanagan's Wonder Women! The Untold Story of American Superheroines traces the fascinating evolution and legacy of Wonder Woman. From the birth of the comic book superheroine in the 1940s to the blockbusters of today, the film looks at how popular representations of powerful women often reflect society’s anxieties about women’s liberation. Wonder Women! goes behind the scenes with Lynda Carter, Lindsay Wagner, comic writers and artists, and real-life superheroines such as Gloria Steinem, Kathleen Hanna and others, who offer an enlightening and entertaining counterpoint to the male-dominated superhero genre.
