WMM is today announced that Natalia Almada, winner of the US Directing Award: Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival for EL GENERAL, was awarded the 2009 Jacqueline Donnet Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award at last week’s International Documentary Association awards in Los Angeles. This award honors emerging directors of non-fiction films.
EL GENERAL has also been nominated for the Truer Than Fiction Independent Spirit Award. Film Independent will be announcing the winners on March 5, 2010 in Los Angeles.
In this extraordinary tour de force, Almada brings to life audio recordings she inherited from her grandmother—reminiscences about Natalia’s great-grandfather General Plutarco Elías Calles, a revolutionary general who became president of Mexico in 1924. Through his daughter’s recordings, EL GENERAL moves between the memories of a daughter grappling with her memory of her family life versus history’s portrait of her father, and the weight of his legacy in the country today. “A beautifully detailed production, EL GENERAL is captivating for its director’s unencumbered appraisal of her family’s formative role in her country’s violent past and for its compassionate portrait of Mexico both then and now.“ -Seattle Film Festival