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OAS ANNOUNCES FIRST-EVER AWARDS FOR LATIN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL

  October 1, 2004

The Organization of American States (OAS), the American Film Institute and the Ibero-American Cultural Attachés today jointly announced the first-ever winners of the DC Latin American Film Festival. The awards went to filmmakers participating in the Seventh Latin American Film Festival, currently in progress in Washington DC.

Brazil’s entry, MAN OF THE YEAR [O homen do ano], was judged Best Feature Film and also won Best Actor for Murilo Benício. Nicaragua’s METAL AND GLASS [Metal y vidrio] won best Short Film; Chile’s Boris Quercia won Best Director for SEX WITH LOVE [Sexo con amor]; and Chile’s Manuela Martelli won Best Actress for her performance in B-HAPPY.

The Festival’s Best Feature, Brazil’s MAN OF THE YEAR, will be shown again at a special screening on Sunday, October 3rd at AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center at 8:45 p.m.

Chile’s SEX WITH LOVE, the Best Director selection, will screen again at the AFI National Film Theatre at the Kennedy Center, at 8:45 p.m.

The judges for the Festival’s first-ever awards were Raul Galvez, Director of the Toronto International Latin American Film Festival; Jeffrey Middens, Professor of Literature at The American University; and María Isabel Rivero, a journalist with the German news agency DPA.

Running through October 3, the 7th Latin American Film Festival features the best new internationally-recognized films from across Latin America. The films are showing at two locations—the AFI Silver Theatre and Cultural Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, and the AFI National Film Theater at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC.

More than 50 new films were screened during the 2004 Festival, many of them to sold-out audiences. The films represent 15 Latin American countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Niccaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela.

Reference: E-173/04