Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival Awards - 2006
by Andre Soares
I’ve finally posted the list of winners at the 10th Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival. The award winners were announced by Edward James Olmos and Marlene Dermer this past Oct. 16.
For a variety of reasons, I skipped this year’s edition of the Latino festival. After the fact, I was sorry I did.
Among the screened films, there were two I was eager to watch: Alberto Rodríguez’s well-regarded Spanish comedy-drama 7 vírgenes / 7 Virgins, about a young man (San Sebastián Festival Best Actor winner Juan José Ballesta) trying to find his path in life, and Tristán Bauer’s equally well-regarded Argentinean drama Iluminados por el fuego / Blessed by Fire, starring Gastón Pauls (the young con man in Fabián Bielinsky’s Nueve reinas / Nine Queens) as a Falklands War veteran trying to cope with both his horrific past and his dismal present.
For the record, 7 vírgenes won the Opera Prima (or Best First Film) Award, while Iluminados por el fuego took the Best Screenplay Award (for Bauer, Miguel Bonasso, Edgardo Esteban, and Gustavo Romero Borri). The Best Film Award — the Rita — went to Luis Estrada’s Mexican political satire Un Mundo maravilloso / A Wonderful World.
I hope that this year’s edition of the Latino festival was better organized than last year’s, which I attended as a member of the press. For instance, following a screening of José Antonio Dorado’s Colombian drug-trafficking drama El Rey, there were no English-language translators to be found.
Edward James Olmos was present, and asked who in the audience of about 30 people couldn’t understand or speak Spanish. I believe I was the only one who raised his hand. (I can understand and speak some Spanish, but I’m hardly fluent.)
At that moment, a press member for a Spanish-language news publication loudly snapped, "Learn it!" The Colombians in the audience found that funny. I failed to see the humor — or the point, considering that filmmaker Dorado was here in Los Angeles, where English is for the most part the language of communication, to promote his Colombian film to an American audience. Since the director couldn’t understand or make himself understood in English, I’d have thought that a translator would have been a no-brainer, regardless of the number of non-Spanish speakers in the audience.
As it turned out … for a few minutes, Olmos stood next to me whispering in English what Dorado was saying out loud in Spanish. Shortly thereafter, Olmos disappeared. One of the film’s stars stepped in to provide the translation, until the same snappy Spanish-language press member told her to shut up. Since Dorado was ignoring my raised arm — I was right in front of him; my fingers almost going up his nose — I decided it was time to go, report the matter — and get some dinner.
Full list of winners at the 2006 Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival
Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival 2006 Winners
Independent Spirit 2006 Nominees
Stockholm Film Festival 2006 Winners
Asia-Pacific Film Festival 2006 Winners
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