Huelva Awards: Top Prize Goes to Angeles Cruz’s ‘Valentina or the Serenity,’ About a Young Indigenous Girl Processing Her Father’s Death

Fast-emerging Mexican auteur, delivering knowing and cross.grained takes on life in Mixtec communities, actress-turned-director Angeles Cruzs Valentina or the Serenity walked off Saturday night with the top best picture award and best actress (Myriam Bravo) in a high-caliber main competition at this years Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival.

Best actor went to Money Heists Rodolfo de la Serna, for his weighty turn in Paramount Television Intl. Studios The Rescue.

The Rescue Courtesy of Huelva Iberoamerican Film Festival Cruzs win underscored the focus and value of Huelva. Despite funding challenges, Latin Americas big three Mexico, Brazil and Argentina alone produced 660 features in 2022. It is simply impossible for the media to pay sufficient attention to all but a highly select clutch of top titles.

Ibero-American cinema is constantly evolving. Now, it is very easy to find great films, if not in budgetary terms, then in artistic ambitions, Huelva director Manuel H. Martin toldVarietyin the run-up to the festival. Valentina, played Toronto and Mexico. Despite that, it deserves far more attention.

Titles, moreover, buck clich and expectations. Valentina turns on a young Mixtec girls attempt to process her fathers death, which runs from guilt and denial to final remembrance. Critics consensus, to the extent that it has received reviews, is that the final effect is an entertaining film.

Huelvas Audience Award winner La Suprema, from Colombias Felipe Holgun, is set in a dirt poor hamlet off the Caribbean coast. That said, it delivers a heart warming ode to community solidarity as the villagers rally round to fufill a long girls dream.

Courtesy of Huelva Iberoamerican Film Festival Launched by Fremantle at MipCancun and scooping best director at Huelva, Adolfo, first feature director Sofia Auzas Berlin Generation 14Plus winner, moves more in the quirky relationship mode of U.S. idea cinema than Mexican melodrama.

Huelva Special Jury Prize laureate The Buriti Flower, Rene Nader Messora and Joo Salaviza, winner of a Cannes Un Certain Regard Ensemble Prize, calibrates the Kraho peoples ever more sophisticated battle for land rights. The first three title attest to the lighter, more uplifting mood coursing post-pandemic through Latin American cinema. As producer The Immigrants Camila Jimnez-Villa and SilvanaAguirre said of Adolfo, Sofia paints a world where pain very much exists but is mitigated by the warmth of human connection.

In further plaudits, Andalusian Talents Juan Ramn Jimnez Prize was won by Reflections in a Bedroom, an across-the-tracks relationship drama directed by Ceres Machado, chosen byVarietyin 2022 as one of Spains 10 Talents to Track.

The Buriti Flower Courtesy of Cannes Film Festival 2022 Huelva Ibero-American Film Festival Winners:

The prizes are named after Colombus, Clon in Spanish, who set sail from Huelva in 1492 to discover a new route to the Indies, ending up in the Americas.

Golden Coln, Best Film

Valentina or the Serenity (Valentina o la Serenidad, Mexico)

Silver Coln, Special Mention

The Buriti Flower (Portugal, Brazil)

Silver Coln, Best Director

Sofa Auza (Adolfo, Mexico, U.S.)

Silver Coln, Best Acting

Rodrigo de la Serna The Recue (El Rapto, Argentina)

Myriam Bravo Valentina or the Serenity (Valentina o la Serenidad, Mexico)

Leadcast Prison in the Andes (Penal Cordillera, Chile, Brazil)

Audience Award

La Suprema (Colombia)

Silver Coln, Youth Jury Best International Ibero-American Short Film

Antes de Madrid (Uruguay)

Silver Coln Best National Short Film

Si me queri, irse (Spain)

Silver Coln Youth Jury Best Andalucian Short Film Director

Fer Prez (Hipocampo, Spain)

Juan Ramn Jimnez Award Andalucian Talent

Reflejos de una Habitacin (Spain)

Pantalla Huelva Best Short Film

Donde no habite el olvido (Spain)

Pantalla Huelva Audience Award

La ltima (Spain)

Radio Exterior de Espaa Award

La Suprema (Spain)

Camilo a la Libertad Asociacin Cultura con Orgullo Best LGTBQI+ Screening Award

Power Alley(Levante) (Spain)

AAMMA Women Award

Lillah Halla (Power Alley Levante) Brazil)

Huelva Transfusion, Tissue and Cells Center Award Pelcula Ms Solidaria Award

Valentina or the Serenity (Valentina o la Serenidad, Mexico)

Ibero-American Journalist Association Award

The Rescue (El Rapto, Argentina)

ANCCO Award Broken Heart Award

Valentina or the Serenity (Valentina o la Serenidad, Mexico)

IES Pablo Neruda Best Feature Film

Reflejos en una Habitacin (Spain)

IES Pablo Neruda Best International Short Film

Antes de que te vayas (Chile, Mexico)

Ibero-American House Best Official Selection Film Award

The Buriti Flower (Portugal, Brazil)

Huelva Len Ortega Art School Award Feature Film Best Cinematography

Adolfo (Mexico)

Huelva Len Ortega Art School Award Short Film Best Cinematography

Apnea (Mexico)