The 4th Company / La 4a compañía, the debut feature by Amir Galván and Mitzi Vanessa Arreola leads the nominations in the 59th edition of the Ariel Awards, Mexico's national film award presented by the Mexican Academy of Film Arts and Sciences.
With 20 nods including for Best Film, Best Director, and Best First Film, The 4th Company tells the story of Zambrano, a juvenile offender that when arrives to the penitentiary only longs to join a football team, Los Perros. 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.
The other productions competing for the Ariel for Best Film are Bellas de Noche by María José Cuevas, From Afar / Desde allá by Lorenzo Vigas, Desierto by Jonás Cuarón, Mara'akame's Dream / El sueño de Mara'akame by Federico Cecchetti, You're Killing Me Susana / Me estás matando Susana by Roberto Sneider, and Tempestad by Tatiana Huezo.
Galván and Arreola are joined by Cuarón, Huezo, Cecchetti, and Snider in the nominations for Best Director. In the Best First Film competition, The 4th Company is competing against Bellas de Noche, From Afar, Distancias cortas, Mara'akame's Dream and Maquinaria Panamericana.
In the Best Documentary category five features films got nominations: Bellas de Noche, The Ballad of Oppenheimer Park / La balada del Oppenheimer Park by Juan Manuel Sepúlveda, Somos Lengua by Kyzza Terrazas, Tempestad, and The Weekend Sailor by Bernardo Arsuaga.
And four Latin American films were nominated for Best Ibero-American Film including the Colombian film Anna by Jacques Toulemonde, the Argentinean The Distinguished Citizen / El ciudadano ilustre by Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat, the Ecuadorian Sin muertos no hay carnaval / Such Is Life in the Tropics by Sebastián Cordero, and the Brazilian The Second Mother / A Que Horas Ela Volta by Anna Muylaert.
The winners of the 59th Ariel Awards will be announced at a special ceremony on July 11 in Mexico City.
