The 4th Company / La 4a compañía, the debut feature by Amir Galván and Mitzi Vanessa Arreola, and Tempestad by Tatiana Huezo were the big winners at the 59th edition of the Ariel Awards, Mexico's national film awards, which were announced at a ceremony last night in Mexico City.
The 4th Company won ten of the 20 nominations it received including Best Film, Best Actor (ex aequo), Best Supporting Actor, and Best Editing. The film tells the story of a juvenile offende longs to join a football team when arrives to the penitentiary. Such illusion ends up involving him with the organized crime under the auspices of the authority, because the team is also the 4th Company, a squad of inmates that controls services and privileges in prison, and submits the city to crime, reporting big dividends to men of power.
Director Tatiana Huezo
Tempestad was the winner of four Ariel Awards for Best Director, Best Documentary Film, Best Cinematography, and Best Sound. Huezo's Ariel Award for Best Director was a first for a woman filmmaker.
Tempestad is an emotional journey of two women victimized by corruption and injustice in Mexico, and how they used love, dignity and resistance to survive.
Two films tied for the Ariel for Best Ibero-American Film: the Argentine The Distinguished Citizen / El ciudadano ilustre by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat, and the Brazilian The Second Mother / A Que Horas Ela Volta by Anna Muylaert.
