A full house and with the good news of being the third festival in Latin America and the first in the Caribbean to be accredited by the International Federation of Film Producers Associations (FIAPF) and the first of the multi award-winning Dominican film "Cocote", by director Nelson Carlo de los Santos, concluded on Wednesday at the BlueMall Film Palace, the eleventh edition of the Dominican Republic Global Film Festival (FCGD).

 

The closing ceremony was led by the president of the Global Democracy and Development Foundation (FUNGLODE), Leonel Fernández; the director of the FCGD, Omar de la Cruz, the director of the DGCINE, Yvette Marichal, and part of the cast of the Creole film "Cocote". Also present was the well-known American actor Chris Tucker, to whom the FCGD awarded him the Global Award for his professional career.

 

As is tradition, the last night of the event was the setting for the awards ceremony and in that sense, the film Cocote won recognition as Best First Fiction Opera; The pact of Adriana, of the Chilean director Lissette Orozco obtained the award like Better Documentary Prima Opera and the short films, Playing House, of the director Cenk Köksal; The daily, of the directors David Lara, Gerardo Carreras and Margarita Mansilla; and, 16 weeks, producers Giovanni Maccelli and Raquel Pereira, obtained first, second and third place respectively.

 

Alfonso Quiñones and Desiree Reyes, members of the jury of Ópera Prima Ficción, rated "Cocote" as "a proposal that mixes fiction with our marvelous reality, in a postmodern rereading ... an experienced language that warns of an interesting and profound authorial style" .

 

While Humberto Almonte on behalf of the judges who evaluated the documentary category considered that "The pact of Adriana" is "a film that begins to be made to seek answers and ends in an attempt to seek cures for wounds that is not known if one day they will heal. "

 

The jury that was in charge of the evaluation of the short films said that they made that selection "because of the way in which they use the resources of the cinematographic language to demonstrate and denounce evils of contemporaneity".

 

The director of FCGD, Omar de la Cruz, revealed in the company of Ambassador Mr. Byung Yun Kim, that the twelfth edition of the FCGD will be the guest of honor to South Korea and that it will be held from January 30 to February 6. 2019. He also thanked all those who made possible the realization of this successful film week, including sponsors, technical team and volunteers.

 

A week of emotions

 

For eight days, the Dominican cinematographic proposals were not lacking, as the case of "Luka" by Annel Pichardo and Jan Babeto Rodríguez, "What really matters" by Andy Tavárez and Alex Loredo; "Gabriela" by River Tatem, a short film that deals with the drama of gender violence; and "Buscando al zorro" by Wigner Duarte.

 

Some Oscar-nominated films were also presented such as: "Call me by your name", nominated in four categories, including best adapted film; "Without love", best foreign film and "Faces Places", nominated as best documentary.

 

Another innovation of this edition was the FCGD application for mobile devices through which all the desired information of the event was obtained, which was downloaded by 500 users and had 14 thousand open sessions.

 

The inaugural gala was the setting for the national premiere and regional premiere of the movie "Wonderstruck," starring Julianne Moore, Oakes Fegley and the young Dominican actor, Jaden Michael.

 

The FCGD in its eleventh edition had 32 activities among national and international talks, panels and Actor's Studio. While initiatives such as the Co-Production Market, and the Dominican Film Lab; both in its fourth edition and coordinated by filmmaker Tanya Valette, gave good news. For example, films like "This Island" by Lorraine Jones Molina (Puerto Rico), "Scattered" by Karen Martínez (Trinidad and Tobago) and "Los Casetes de Míster Cuba" by Orisel Castro (Cuba) aroused the interest of some of the production companies.