“The Animal’s Wife” sweeps Lleida Catalonia Latin America Fest

PanARMENIAN.Net - Colombian Victor Gaviria’s “The Animal’s Wife” took director, feature and screenplay awards at the Lleida Catalonia Latin America Festival. “Wife” also snagged the Audience and Radio Exterior de España prizes, Variety reports.

In “The Animal’s Wife,” multi-awarded Gaviria (“Addictions and Subtractions,” “The Rose Seller”) delivers a reflection about misogyny through a female empowerment drama. “Wife” follows Amparo (Natalia Polo) who flees the convent after a minor offense to find refuge at her sister’s home, in a shanty neighborhood of Medellin. There, a family member of her brother-in-law, cousin Libardo (Tito Alexander Gómez) obsesses about Amparo and abducts her, forcing her to live under his roof. Premiered at the Toronto Festival, “Wife” is internationally sold by Italy’s Fandango.

Lola Amores took best actress for “Santa & Andrés,” the sophomore directorial effort of Carlos Lechuga (“Melaza”). An intimate drama, “Santa” won actress and Best Ibero-American Fiction Feature at Mexico’s Guadalajara Film Festival. “Santa” is a Cuban production –in co-production with France and Colombia– that world-premiered at Toronto and took Miami’s best performance award, shared with co-star Eduardo Martínez. “Santa” has been pre-selected for the upcoming Platino Awards in two categories –Feature and Screenplay. It was selected, then rejected for the Havana Festival. Lechuga pulled it from the Havana Film Festival New York after it was shifted from a competition berth due to pressures from Cuba’s ICAIC Film Festival, a fest funder.

Alan Sabbagh took Lleida’s actor award for Daniel Burman’s romcom “The Tenth Man” – following his best actor in an international narrative feature jury award at the Tribeca Fest for “Man.” The feature premiered at the Berlin Film Festival as a Panorama Special.

The top Audience Award also went to “Wife.” Second and third-place audience prizes were won respectively by Uruguay’s “Clever,” by directorial duo Federico Borgia and Guillermo Madeiro. and Argentine’s “Black Snow,” by Martín Hodara.

The 23rd Lleida Catalonia Latin America Festival closed Sunday, April 2 with the screening of Juan Taratuto’s mainstream screwball comedy and Argentine smash hit, “I Married a Dumbass.”