Fernando Pérez wins Havana Festival Best Director Award

Cuban filmmaker and scriptwriter Fernando Pérez won the Best Director Award at the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana, his seventh Coral prize since making his debut in 1987.

His film “José Martí, el ojo del canario”(José Martí, the Eye of the Canary), a humanistic look at the Cuban independence fighter and national hero, also won the awards for Best Artistic Direction and Best Poster and the Signis Prize on Sunday night.

A day earlier, he received eight of the festival’s collateral prizes, including from UNICEF.

Considered as one of the most important Cuban directors in the last two decades, Pérez won his first Coral 23 years ago for Clandestinos, his debut film about the Cuban urban underground movement against the Batista dictatorship.

In 1990, he won the Coral Grand Prize for Hello Hemingway, and in 1994 he received the Special Jury Prize for Madagascar. Four years later, he won the Coral Grand Prize and Best Director Award for La Vida es Silbar (Life is Whistling), and in 2003, his documentary Suite Habana won the Best Documentary Award.

At this year’s Havana Film festival, Uruguayan director Federico Veiroj won the Coral Grand Prize for Best Film, for his originality of expression in La Vida Util (Useful Life), a moving declaration of love for film.

Chilean Pablo Larrain won second place with Post Mortem, whose stars, Antonia Zegers and Antonio Castro, also won the Coral prizes for Best Actress and Best Actor, and the same film won the Coral for Best Script.

Mexican María Novaro took third place for Las Buenas Hierbas, making it the third time she has been a winner at the Havana Film Festival.

Other winners at the Havana Film Festival:

-Coral First Place: La vida útil, by Federico Veiroj (Uruguay)

-Coral Second Place: Post mortem, by Pablo Larraín (Chile)

-Coral Third Place: Las buenas hierbas, by María Novaro (Mexico)

-Special Jury Prize: La mirada invisible, by Diego Lerman (Argentina)

-Jury Mention: Casa vieja, by Lester Hamlet (Cuba)

-Best Director: Fernando Pérez, for José Martí, el ojo del canario (Cuba)

-Best Actor: Alfredo Castro, for Post Mortem (Chile)

-Best Actress: Antonia Zegers, for Post Mortem (Chile)

-Best Script: Pablo Larraín and Mateo Iribarren, for Post mortem (Chile)

-Best Photography: Damián García, for Chicogrande (Mexico)

-Best Artistic Direction: Erick Grass, for José Martí, El Ojo del Canario (Cuba)

-Best Editing: Eliane Katx, for Por tu culpa (Argentina)

-Best Original Music: Santiago Chávez and Judith de León, for Las buenas hierbas (México)