The Latin American Studies Association is pleased to announce the LASA2021 Film Festival winners. The LASA Film Festival is organized in unison with the annual LASA Congresses.
The Film Festival has strived to exhibit audiovisual materials from around the world related to the multiple and diverse perspectives encompassing Latin American: its history, its socio-political and cultural development, the ongoing reality of its inhabitants, and the discourses that bound its nations and the region in general.
Best Feature Film Award
499
Director: Rodrigo Reyes
The year 2021 marks the 500-year anniversary of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico. To commemorate the historical occasion, director Rodrigo Reyes offers a bold, hybrid cinema experience, mixing non-fictional and performative elements with components of a road movie. Through the eyes of a ghostly conquistador, Reyes recreates Hernán Cortez’s epic journey from the coasts of Veracruz to the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan, the site of contemporary Mexico City. As the anachronistic fictional character interacts with real victims of Mexico’s failed drug wars, the filmmaker portrays the country’s current humanitarian crisis as part of a brutal and unfinished colonial project, still in motion, 499 years later.
Best Short Film Award
Compañero/a
Directors: Alejandra Vassallo and Juan Bugarín
A traditional recipe signals the beginning of a collective ritual where countless bodies pour into the streets of Buenos Aires, Argentina. They walk, eat, argue, dance, and scream to the beat of the drums, wearing white makeshift kerchiefs around their necks. "Compañero/a" is a documentary film of the May 2017 rally against the Supreme Court ruling that would have liberated the military who had committed crimes against humanity during the dictatorship. A spontaneous meeting of half a million people claiming for justice and eating "choripán".
Members of the Award Committee
The members of the award committee are María Eugenia Ulfe, LASA2021 Film Festival Director, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; Susana M. Kaiser, University of San Francisco; Fernando Vílchez Rodríguez, FILMADRID; and Gabriela Zamorano Villarreal, Colegio de Michoacán.
LASA2021 FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAM
The film descriptions are published in the language sent by the directors.
About LASA
The Latin American Studies Association (LASA) is the largest professional association in the world for individuals and institutions engaged in the study of Latin America. With over 13,000 members, over 60% of whom reside outside the United States, LASA is the one association that brings together experts on Latin America from all disciplines and diverse occupational endeavors, across the globe. LASA's mission is to foster intellectual discussion, research, and teaching on Latin America, the Caribbean, and its people throughout the Americas, promote the interests of its diverse membership, and encourage civic engagement through network building and public debate.
If you wish to interview a LASA Executive Council member, you can contact the LASA communications office at (412) 648-7929 or send an email to lasa@lasaweb.org.