Filmmaker Juan Pablo González to be honored with True/False's only award
Unlike some of its peer festivals, the True/False Film Fest only bestows one award per year.
The True Vision Award is not tied to a single achievement or event, but celebrates a growing body of work the festival deems innovative or transformative within the world of nonfiction cinema.
Juan Pablo González will receive the True Vision Award at next month's festival, True/False announced Friday.
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The Mexican filmmaker will bring his latest work, "Dos Estaciones," to the fest; and in keeping tradition, True/False will screen titles from González's catalog — specifically, past festival selections "Caballerango" and "Las Nubes" — as well as a González-curated film that influenced his artistry, to be announced with the full festival lineup.
González's work, which "spans fiction and nonfiction," is deeply tied to his place and time, the festival announcement noted. It "seeks to reclaim the medium to counter colonial narratives and center the voices of rural Mexico — building alternative histories to those that seek to frame its communities as being locked in stasis, or as victims of circumstance."
The filmmaker regularly collaborates with people from within his personal life, the festival said, together working to "explore community, grief, globalization, and the changing nature of Jalisco as a place."
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The Sundance Film Festival, which recently screened "Dos Estaciones," called González's latest "a visual love letter" to the state of Jalisco. The film hinges on the challenges facing a main character who, like the director, comes from a tequila-producing family, The Wrap's Robert Abele reported.
"With the fusing of fictional sensibilities and non-fiction elements an increasingly appealing alchemy for filmmakers — particularly where capturing the authenticity of a place is concerned — González shows he’s as talented as anyone at this emerging genre’s rewarding visual and thematic possibilities," Abele writes.
Last year's True Vision Award winner was "Delphine’s Prayers" filmmaker Rosine Mbakam. Others among an illustrious cast of honorees include Kirby Dick, Alex Gibney, Laura Poitras, Claire Simon and the Ross brothers, Bill and Turner.
The 19th edition of True/False is scheduled for March 3-6. Learn more at https://truefalse.org/.
This article originally appeared on Columbia Daily Tribune: Mexican filmmaker González to be honored with True/False's only award
