Argentina's TRENQUE LAUQUEN Named Best Latin American Film Of The Year

The Argentine feature Trenque Lauquen by Laura Citarella was announced as the winner of the top award for Best Latin American Film of the Year at the 14th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards, which were announced this evening in a special event at Film at Lincoln Center in New York City.

The Chilean filmmaker Manuela Martelli was the winner of the Cinema Tropical Award for Best Director for her debut feature Chile ‘76, while the Costa Rican feature, I Have Electric Dreams (Tengo sueños eléctricos) by Valentina Maurel was announced winner of the award for Best First Film. The jury gave the award for Best Documentary to The Trial (El juicio) by Ulises de la Órden.

In the U.S. Latinx Cinema competition, the winner of the award for Best Film was the fiction film Story Ave, the debut feature by Aristotle Torres.

The Latin American winners of this year's Cinema Tropical Awards were selected by a jury panel composed of Mónica Castillo, Senior Film Programer Curator at the Jacob Burns Film Center; Mara Fortes, Senior Curator at the Telluride Film Festival; María Paula Lorgia, Artistic Director of the San Diego Latino Film Festival; Marian Luntz, Film Curator at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and Manuel Santini, Senior Manager, Programming at Film at Lincoln Center. 

The winners of the U.S. Latinx Film Awards were selected by scholar Arlene Dávila, Founding Director of the Latinx Project at New York University; Marángeli Mejia-Rabell, Director of the Philadelphia Latino Arts & Film Festival (PHLAFF); and film programmer Ernie Quiroz.

All the films under consideration had a minimum of 60 MINUTES in length and premiered between May 1, 2022, and April 30, 2023.

Cinema Tropical's programs are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts.

Complete List of Winners — 13th Annual Cinema Tropical Awards:

• Best Film: Trenque Lauquen by Laura Citarella, Argentina
• Best Director: Chile ‘76 by Manuela Martelli, Chile
• Best First Film: I Have Electric Dreams (Tengo sueños eléctricos) by Valentina Maurel, Costa Rica
• Best Documentary: The Trial (El juicio) by Ulises de la Órden, Argentina
• Best U.S. Latinx Film: Story Ave by Aristotle Torres, USA

About Cinema Tropical and the Cinema Tropical Awards:

Celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2021, New York-based Cinema Tropical (CT) is the leading presenter of Latin American cinema in the U.S. Founded by Carlos A. Gutiérrez and Monika Wagenberg in 2001 with the mission of distributing, programming and promoting what was to become the biggest boom of Latin American cinema in decades, CT brought U.S. audiences some of the first screening of films such as Amores Perros and Y Tu Mamá También.

Through a diversity of programs and initiatives, CT is thriving as a dynamic and groundbreaking 501(c)(3) non-profit media arts organization experimenting in the creation of better and more effective strategies for the distribution and exhibition of foreign cinema in this country.

The Cinema Tropical Awards were created in 2010 to honor excellence in Latin American filmmaking, and it became the first international award entirely dedicated to honoring the artistry of recent Latin American cinema. In its inaugural year, the Awards were given to the Ten Best Latin American Films of the Aughts.