The Tribeca Film Festival is in full swing. As many know the Tribeca Film Festival was founded by Jane Rosenthal and Robert DeNiro in the after-math of 9/11 to help revitalize Lower Manhattan. In its 12th year, the festival still aims to enrich Lower Manhattan. It’s also focused on breaking new films and talent internationally. As part of that mission the Tribeca Film Institute teamed with Heineken for its annual Heineken VOCES Grant. ‘LLERO had a chance to attend the award reception honoring the 2014 VOCES Grant recipients and we learned more about the winners, their films and the state of Latino film in the United States.
The VOCES grant, now in its third year, seeks to support and nurture Latino film and awards two U.S. Latino filmmakers for their contributions to the cinematographic arts. Since its inception in 2012 the grant seeks to empower these filmmakers creative journeys by providing capital for their projects as well as year-long mentorship and support from the Tribeca Film Institute.
This year’s winners were Rodrigo Reyes for his documentary Sanson and Me, and Yolanda Cruz, for her feature La Raya. Mexico City native Reyes won for his documentary project Sanson and Me, which chronicles two Mexicans with parallel lives: one is serving a life sentence for a crime he committed while the other is a filmmaker.
Upon receiving the award Reyes noted,
“I am very happy to be receiving the support of a grant that is not expecting [me] to make token films that just cater to the left or to the right, but to explore what it means to be Latino and what that experience is like.”
Cruz won the grant in the Narrative category to make La Raya, her first feature film, which tells the story of an Indian community in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca and whose life changes when a refrigerator arrives for the community’s children.
With the disappearance of regional Latino film festivals, the Tribeca Film Institute believes its mission is an urgent one. “With the loss of the New York Latino Film Festival the need to support Latino filmmakers is more crucial and important than ever,” said a representative.
“All too often the stereotypes of what Latino culture and identity look like continue to be propogated by the media that we see to the point where audiences fail to see what the truth really is. The VOCES grant allows filmmakers to speak out and give true content to their shared history.”
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.