No Money No Honey Director Nicole Costa with protagonist Máxima Mauricio
No Money No Honey, the new feature documentary by New York-based Chilean filmmaker Nicole Costa, has won the Grand Jury Prize for Best Documentary/Nonfiction Feature at the 38th NewFest, New York’s LGBTQ+ Film Festival.
The award follows the film’s acclaimed world premiere in competition at the Camden International Film Festival and its New York premiere at NewFest, where it competed in the festival’s documentary section.
Blending personal VHS footage spanning 1991 to 2004 with contemporary material filmed in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, No Money No Honey traces the life of Máxima Mauricio, an Argentine nonbinary/travesti sex worker whose journey unfolds across Buenos Aires, Miami, and New York City. Through an intimate portrait shaped by decades of friendship, migration, and personal transformation, Costa explores queer memory, survival, and the ongoing struggle for self-determination.
The documentary also evokes the legacy of pioneering transgender activist Lorena Borjas, situating Máxima’s personal story within a broader history of trans and immigrant communities in the United States.
Meanwhile, the Brazilian feature The Riverbank / A Margem do Rio, directed by Enock Carvalho and Matheus Farias, received a Special Mention in the International Narrative Feature competition. The film follows Izaquiel, a cleaner in the Brazilian city of Recife whose encounters with a fisherman draw him into a world of desire and violence amid the region’s mangrove forests. The debut feature by Carvalho and Farias previously won the Special Jury Prize at the Locarno Film Festival.
