2023 LOLA Award Winners — Los Features
Congratulations to our 2023 LOLA Award Winners in the Los Features category!
For the PHLAFF 2023 season, LOLA-nominated films highlight collaboration and/or interdisciplinary practices. Read more about the LOLA Features winners and watch their trailers below.
- 2023 lola features winners -
Mother of color
Mother of Color
United States // 2022 // Drama // 87 minutes
Philadelphia Premiere
Director: Dawn Jones Redstone
Producer: Tara Johnson-Medinger, Ashley Song
In a tumultuous world, Noelia is a whip-smart community organizer and single mother of two, who constantly has to make hard choices between her kids and her career. When she’s offered the chance to interview for a position that could change everything, she begins receiving mysterious messages from her ancestors. Noelia senses that something bigger is at play as she works through a series of obstacles to get to the interview and follow her dreams.
First Voice Generation
First Voice Generation
United States // 2023 // Documentary // 78 minutes
East Coast USA Premiere
Director: Cynthia Martinez
Producer: Melissa Sterne
First Voice Generation follows the stories of three Latinx high school students in Holland, Michigan, during an unprecedented global pandemic year. Each student struggles with their identity growing up in a historically Dutch community, feeling that they don't belong because they are children of Mexican immigrants. They each dream of being the first in their family to go college, but a year of challenges ensue with virtual learning and the realization that the cost of affording college seems impossible.
El Caribe en mí / The Caribbean in Me
El Caribe en mí / The Caribbean in Me
Puerto Rico // 2022 // Documentary // 32 minutes
International Premiere
Director: Juan Carlos Garía AKA JC Garpadi
Producer: Juan Carlos García, Hiromi Shiba
Five contemporary Puerto Rican artists -Daniel Lind. Nick Quijano, Diana Dávila, Mireidi Méndez, and Raymond Cruz Corchado- share their diverse visions and thoughts on the meaning of making art in the Caribbean, and on the presence of the region in their work. Each artist has chosen for the film a location that connects with their vital experience and perspectives. Through their interaction with these spaces they articulate textures, sounds, recollections and senses of place that deliver a diverse narrative about the experience of living, being and creating art in the Caribbean.
POR LOS QUE VIENEN (FOR THOSE TO COME)
POR LOS QUE VIENEN (FOR THOSE TO COME)
Puerto Rico // 2022 // Documentary // 82 minutes
Philadelphia Premiere
Director: Mikey Cordero and Frances Medina
Producer: Mikey Cordero and Frances Medina
For Those To Come takes on the task of unearthing the fight and strategies of communities combating the climate crises that threaten the livelihood of the people living in Puerto Rico. This documentary project is as much of a love letter, as it is a wake-up call, for Puerto Rico y su gente. While the wrath of climate change and political infrastructures attempts to cast a shadow over the islands’ future, solutions-driven and people-centered projects and advocacy campaigns – often led by women - continue transcending any government intervention or systems.
La Comuna (The Commune)
La Comuna (The Commune)
Puerto Rico // 2023 // Drama // 40 minutes
World Premiere
Director: Linda D. Maymí
Producer: Adrián Borges, Linda Maymí & Christian M. Kelly
After years of growing as a team, this Puerto Rican group of circus performers, known as “La Comuna” (The Commune), have been forced to leave their creative headquarters. It has been one year since their last performance and now they must come together to pick up the pieces of their creative home. Staring Marietere Vélez (actress and screenwriter, “Receta no incluida”), Yussef Soto (actor, circus performer, and founder of “Y no había luz…”), Delia Isabel Rivera, Miguel Sabalier and Catalina Morales.
BronX BandA: Arturo O'Farrill & The Bronx
BronX BandA: Arturo O'Farrill & The Bronx
United States // 2023 // Documentary // 78 minutes
Philadelphia Premiere
Director: Taylor Krauss
Producer: Taylor Krauss / Gail Heidel // Fred Miller (music producer) // Rosalino Ramos (field producer) // Axel Stasny (Associate Producer)
During some of the darkest hours of the pandemic, 6-time Grammy Award-winning jazz pianist Arturo O'Farrill brings to life a hip-hop-jazz ensemble featuring Annette A. Aguilar, Kayla Faccilongo, Leo Traversa, Juanma Trujillo, Juan Carlos Polo, Leonor Falcón, Clark Gayton, and Baba Israel.
BronX BandA: Arturo O´Farrill & The Bronx pays homage to the history of the Afro-Latinx music birthed in the Bronx, and the artists on whose shoulders the work stands.
- 2023 lola features honorable mention -
Mom
Mom
Mexico // 2022 // Documentary // 80 minutes
Philadelphia Premiere
Director: Xun Sero
Producer: Terra Nostra Films
As a Mexican Tsotsil I grew up between the sacrality both of Guadalupe Virgin and Mother Earth. As a son, I grew up among the derision of not having a father and blaming my mother for it. ‘Mom’ is a dialogue between mother and son exploring their contradictions, knowing and recognizing each other, and reflecting on naturalized violence and its reproduction.
The LOLA Awards were established in 2014 to recognize and honor cinematic achievements in filmmaking in the Latine/x/a/o creative community. Films that receive the LOLA Award accordingly feature strong artistic direction, moving performances, and compelling storytelling.
