Lucrecia Martel has snagged a major honor at Locarno Film Festival. Her latest work, hybrid documentary “Chocobar,” won the top international prize in the Swiss fest’s The Films After Tomorrow initiative, “for projects that have stalled at various stages of production due to the Covid-19 pandemic,” Screen Daily reports.
“Chocobar” marks Martel’s first non-fiction title and revisits the murder of Javier Chocobar, an indigenous activist in Argentina who was shot by a white landowner. It was “named best international project by the international jury, made up of Nadav Lapid, Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese, and Kelly Reichardt, and received one of the festival’s two Pardo 2020 awards, worth $73,000 (CHF 70,000),” the source details. The other Pardo, which is given is recognition of the best Swiss project, went to Marí Alessandrini’s “Zahorí,” a portrait of a friendship between a 13-year-old girl and an old man that also takes place in Argentina.
“Zama,” Martel’s 2017 drama about a Spanish officer stationed in a remote South American town, was submitted by Argentina in the foreign-language Oscar category. Her other narrative features include “The Headless Woman,” “The Holy Girl,” and “La Ciénaga.”
Locarno is running until August 21.
