Cannes: Latin America present in the awards

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Two Latin American films, one Brazilian and one Nicaraguan, were awarded at the Cannes Film Festival. Here we tell you more about them

The Cannes Film Festival in France is over and, for its 72nd edition, it left a new cohort of winners. This festival is recognized for its quality in the selection, the diversity of the participating countries, and the variety of juries that make up each category, including Latin Americans. On this occasion, for example, the president of the jury was Alejandro Gonzales Iñarritu, the Mexican director recognized by films such as Birdman, The Revenant or Amores Perros.

Leer en español: Cannes: Latinoamérica presente en los galardones

In front of the prize to the longed-for Palm of gold, granted to Parasite of the Korean Bong Joon-Ho, Iñarritú affirmed, according to El Universal, that "From the beginning, I established that there should not be any other consideration." There was no agenda or message that we would like to express, cinema has to speak for itself ".

However, the Latin American presence was not only behind the votes, but also in the palmares of Cannes. On the one hand, Our Mothers of Cesar Díaz won the Camera d'Or award and, on the other, Bacurau de Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles won the Ex- / Equo jury award. Here we tell you more about them.

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Our mothers of Cesar Díaz, Cámara de Oro

The Golden Chamber of Gold is given to the best debut feature of any of the sections, be it the Directors' Fortnight or the week of criticism. For his film Our Mothers, the jury decided to give Cesar Díaz this award. The film is about, as he explains in a festival interview, about "an anthropologist looking for his father disappeared during the war and through the story of a woman from a village in Guatemala will discover something his identity." Faced with his decision to make a film and not a documentary to portray the violence and cases of missing people in his country, he responded "I think that fiction gives me tools that allow me to explore places that at the cinematographic level, I would not have to Through the documentary, notably from the emotion, from the mother and son story ".

Díaz is aware of the possibility of visibility that the festival means. For example, before being awarded, he had already stated that "having the chance to be in the week [of the criticism] is also the chance for many people to watch the film and also the possibility of questioning us about what is happening in Guatemala." Thus, his film is open to the public so that he finds out about what is currently happening in Guatemala and also about the violence in its history.

Finally, at the time of receiving the award, Diaz emphasized that "I would like to dedicate a moment to all the survivors of the Guatemalan homicide, to all those women who remain standing despite everything that has happened to them." In this way, the prize is not only recognition for him, but for the mothers who are victims of the conflict, both of their pain and survival.

Bacurau de Kleber Mendonça Filho and Juliano Dornelles, Jury Prize Ex- / AEquo

Along with the French Les Misérables de Ladj Ly, Bacurau de Mendonça Filho and Dornelles received the jury prize Ex- / Aequo. The film is about a town in Brazil that is currently being chased by US agents. As RFI affirms, "its directors [see it] as a message of 'resistance' to the ultra-right government of their country." In it, which follows a western aesthetic, Americans have carte blanche to kill everyone without the world noticing, but the town, located in the Brazilian northeast, is organized to resist.

Upon receiving the awards, Mendonça affirmed that "We work for culture in Brazil and what we need is your support," referring to the anticultural policy of the Bolsonaro Government. For its part, Dornelles dedicated "this award to all workers in Brazil in science, education, and culture," which complemented the criticism of Mendonça, as he stressed the importance of support for culture.

LatinAmerican Post | Juan Gabriel Bocanegra

Translated from "Cannes: Latinoamérica presente en los galardones"