Colibrí Awards: meet the Ecuadorian winners of the 2022 edition

The movie Unseen (2021), by Manabita filmmaker Javier Andrade, won the Best Fiction Feature Film Award at the Colibrí Award, which awards the best of Ecuadorian cinema every two years.

Unseen He also won the awards for best director, best actress (Anahí Hoeneisen), best cinematography (Daniel Andrade) and best original music (Paola Navarrete), at a gala held on Tuesday night, November 22, at Multicines del Scala Shopping Quito.

The film tells the story of a woman who, after being hospitalized for postpartum depression, returns home to confine herself surrounded by her family and a gang of employees who strive to make her outbursts of madness invisible. The invisible was part of the official selection of the 2022 Malaga Festival.

The award for best documentary feature film went to when they left (2019), by director Verónica Haro. A film that portrays the story of a town in Ecuador affected by migration, where only elderly women live.

the prayer (2022), by director Tito Jara, won the award for best script. The film recounts the life of a precarious con man who manipulates the family of a “miracle girl” and creates a lucrative business that inevitably gets out of hand. This film also won awards in the categories of best actor (Andrés Crespo) and best supporting actor (Carlos Valencia).

Sebastián Cordero, Alfredo León and Iván Mora won the award for best editing for the film Submersible (2020), by director Alfredo León. This film tells the story of three crew members of a handmade narco-submarine that is about to sink and lose its cargo.

Mariana Andrade, president of the Corporation of Audiovisual Producers of Ecuador (Copae), pointed out that the Colibrí Award is “a great x-ray of the state of our cinema. They give us complete and relevant information about what is produced every 2 years in Ecuador and that allows us to evaluate and establish policies and strategies to support the industry”.

Andrade, echoing the request of several of the winners, pointed out that “we need to recover the Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Creation”, while emphasizing the struggle and effort that the filmmakers of the “country have carried out to be able to continue producing films”. , without the support of a Film Institute, since it was merged with the Institute for the Promotion of Creativity and Innovation in 2020.

For his part, Gonzalo Ponce, president of the Academy of Audiovisual and Cinematographic Arts of Ecuador, highlighted “the work of the members of the Academy, who guaranteed that the awards are developed in a transparent process that represents the joint work of all the artists nominated and awarded.

For the 2022 edition of the Colibrí Award, 62 film projects from all over the country were nominated and 19 categories were awarded (see the list below).

The Hummingbird Award in the different categories was selected by electronic and automatic voting of 57 jurors that belong to the Academy of Audiovisual and Cinematographic Arts of Ecuador.

The gala was attended by professionals from the industry, authorities and representatives of associations and public entities of the cinematographic medium.

Full list of Colibrí 2022 winners

Best Fiction Feature Film

Best Documentary Feature

best short film

● A tear for a ripped

Best student short film

Best Ibero-American film

Best Serial Production

Best native language film

• Iwianch, the devil deer

Best animated film

Best actress

• Unseen – Anahi Hoeneisen

best Actor

• The Prayer – Andres Crespo

Best Supporting Actress

• Submersible – Natalia Reyes

Best Supporting Actor

• The Prayer -Charles Valencia

best direction

• Unseen -Javier Andrade

Best screenplay

best cinematography

• Unseen -Daniel Andrade

best mount

• Submersible – Ivan Mora, Alfredo Leon, Sebastian Cordero

best art direction

• Submersible – Emilia Davila

best sound direction

• Submersible – Estebannoise Brauer and Juan José Luzuriaga

best original music

• Unseen – Paola Navarrete