The 33rd Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival (PSIFF) announced the juried award winners with the Mexican film Prayers For the Stolen winning both the FIPRESCI and Ibero-American Award Prizes. Salvadoran-Mexican documentarian Tatiana Huezo makes her narrative debut with this powerful adaptation of Jennifer Clement’s bestselling 2014 novel, which explores the lives of three young girls impacted by Mexico’s ongoing cartel wars.
The 2021 Asian World Film Festival (AWFF) unveiled its Competition, Centerpiece, and Special Screenings slate. The closing night film will be South Korea’s official submission to the 2022 Academy Awards, Escape from Mogadishu. The AWFF, now in its seventh year, will take place November 1 – 11, 2021 at the Landmark Theater, West Pico Blvd., Los Angeles.
Ryoo Seung-wan’s tense action thriller Escape from Mogadishu, starring Kim Yoon-seok (NYAFF Star Asia winner 2018) and Zo In-sung will kick off 20th edition of New York Asian Film Festival (NYAFF) at Film at Lincoln Center on August 6. The dramatic film is based on real events that took place in 1991 at the onset of the Somali Civil War, and depicts the perilous escape attempted by North and South Korean embassy workers who were stranded in the title city during the conflict. (Well Go USA is releasing the film in the United States and Canada.)