The five day festival, 19th Annual Annual Cine Las Americas International Film Festival, screening 38 feature films, 61 short films and 16 music videos, with 24 countries represented concluded on May 8th by announcing the award winners. The festival presented audience and jury awards which were determined by jury members Curran Nault, Sterlin Harjo, Ivete Lucas and Chale Nafus.
The Peruvian film, Rosa Chumbe (pictured left) directed by Jonatan Relayze Chiang won Jury Award for Best Narrative Feature Film. Using the commemoration of Lord of the Miracles as a backdrop, Rosa, a mature police officer finds her routine life, consisting of gambling and drinking, drastically altered when her daughter runs off with her savings and leaves her son behind. Rosa must change her ways to take care of her grandson but, unbeknownst to her, a larger storm is coming.
Amores Urbanos / Restless Love, a Brazilian Comedy/Drama directed by Vera Egito, won Honorable Mention for Best Ensemble. Taking place in Sao Paulo, best friends Julia, Micaela, and Diego are each navigating their love lives, from breakup to unplanned pregnancy to neglect. These friends console one another but their friendship will be strained as they criticize each other’s actions.
The winners of the Documentary Feature competition include Juanicas (pictured right) directed by Karina Garcia Casanova for Jury Award for Best Documentary Feature, which also won the Audience award for Documentary Feature, and Honorable Mention for Cinematography, Tú y Yo / You and Me directed by Natalia Cabral and Oriol Estrada.
As for Documentary Short Competition, Libertad directed by Brenda Avila-Hanna won Jury Award for Best Documentary Short. In the Hecho en Tejas Competition, Ana Con Elisio directed by Lizette Barrera won the Texas Archive of the Moving IMage (TAMI) Award, Dead Sites directed by Jason Outenreath received Honorable Mention for Directing, Sam Lerma’s Squeezebox received Honorable Mention for Cinematography and Get the Hell Out directed by Comedia A Go-Go (CAGG), Jess Castro Regan Arevalos, and Larry Garza was awarded Honorable Mention for Screenwriting.
Audience Award for Narrative Feature Film was awarded to H.O.M.E. (pictured left) directed by Daniel Maldonado. The Audience Award for Best Music video went to Mel Ge’ Gi’ Nut Epit / Strong Woman Song directed by Naomi Condo. The Audience award for Best “Emergencia” Youth Film was a tie between Camping Trip directed by Audrey Larson and Maximilian Shatan’s Trees Count.
The 19th edition of Cine Las Americas Festival took place May 3-8 in Austin, Texas.
