Tribeca Film Festival Awards 2014: Few Latino Films, But Big Wins

The 13th annual Tribeca Film Festival, co-founded by Robert De Niro, Jane Rosenthal and Craig Hatkoff, and presented by AT&T, announced the winners of its competition categories tonight at a ceremony presided over by Pat Kiernan and hosted at the Conrad New York in New York City.

The world competition winners for narrative and documentary films were chosen from 12 narrative and 12 documentary features from 10 countries. Best New Director prizes were awarded to a first-time director for both narrative and documentary films, selected from a pool of 39 feature films throughout the program. Awards were also given for the best narrative short, best documentary short, and student visionary films in the short film competitions. This year’s Festival included 89 features and 57 short films from 40 countries, programmed by a team led by Tribeca’s Chief Creative Officer Geoff Gilmore, Artistic Director Frédéric Boyer, Director of Programming Genna Terranova, and Programmer Cara Cusumano.

Of the 89 feature films, only five were from Latin America (Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezula) and three from the United States (Chef, Food Chains, X/Y), had producers, directors, stars and/or subject matter that was Latino. Of the 57 film shorts, three had producers, directors, stars and/or subject matter that was Latino. 

However, when it came to the awards of the festival, Latinos and films of Latino subject racked up major wins.

Güeros, directed by
Alonso Ruizpalacios.

Güeros (directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios) won Best Cinematography in a Narrative Film for Damián García. Ruizpalacios also received a Special Jury Mention for the film. The film Manos sucias (directed by Josef Kubota Wladyka and written by Alan Blanco and Wladyka), which dealt with Afro-Colombians in the Pacific coast town of Buenaventura, earned Wladyka a Best New Narrative Director award.

Manos sucias, directed by
Josef Kubota Wladyka.

With regard to the Audience Awards, the Heineken Audience Award for Narrative Feature went to Chef (directed by Jon Favreau), which starred John Leguizamo, Bobby Cannavale and Sofía Vergara, among many other high-level stars. (Wladyka's Manos sucias received second place for that award.) Mala mala (directed by Dan Sickles and Antonio Santini) was second place in the Audience Award for Documentary, losing out to Keep On Keepin' On (directed by Alan Hicks).

Finally, the Tribeca Online Festival Best Online Short award was given to Love in the Time of March Madness (directed by Melissa Johnson and Robertino Zambrano).

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