Cuban film triumphs at New York City film fest

New York: The Cuban production ‘Pablo’, directed by Yosmani Acosta, took home two prizes from the New York City International Film Festival, for Best Director and Best Supporting Actor, at a ceremony in which Latin American and Spanish productions won some important honours.

The festival awarded a total of seven prizes to Spanish cinema at the Thursday-night ceremony in the New York Institute of Technology, the organization said Friday. The director of ‘Pablo’, a production about the domestic violence that oppresses a Cuban family, was distinguished as Best Director in the festival, while Cuban actor Omar Franco won the prize as Best Actor in a Supporting Role for his part in that film. Spanish moviemaking was also up for some prizes, with ‘Retrovisor’ by Spaniard Alberto Lavin taking the award for Best Narrative Short Film, with a story about a couple whose lives and even their memories of the past are changed by a car accident. Another Spanish production, ‘La Venta del Paraiso’ by Emilio Ruiz Barranchina, took the prize for Best Original Story for its up close and personal view of migrants in Madrid. Latin American films also made a showing at the prize ceremony, with the award for Best Photography going to Arturo de la Rosa for his work in the Mexican production ‘Apasionado Pancho Villa’. In that production, the director Lourdes Deschamps studies Pancho Villa from the atypical viewpoint of his love life. Another Mexican, Marina Santana, was honored as Best Director of a Short Film for her story about nature, ‘La Fortuna en un Dia de Sol y Lluvia’. IANS