Palm Springs – January 16, 2011— Today, the Palm Springs International Film Festival named Even The Rain as the winner of Cinema Without Borders’ Bridging The Borders Award at the 2011 Palm Springs International Film Festival. The runner-up is Son of Babylon, from Iraq.
This year’s nominees for the award were Eastern Plays (Bulgaria), Even The Rain (Spain), Paper Birds (Spain), Son Of Babylon (Iraq), and When We Leave (Germany).
The award luncheon for the 2011 Palm Springs International Film Festival was held at Spencer’s Restaurant in Palm Springs, California. Spain’s Los Angeles Consul General, Enrique Ruiz, and Elvi Cano, Director of Communications of EGEDA US, accepted the award on behalf of Director Iciar Bollain from Bijan Tehrani, Editor-in-Chief of Cinema Without Borders.
“At Cinema without Borders, we are proud to be a part of the Palm Springs International Film Festival’s celebration of world cinema by giving our Bridging the Borders Award to a film that helps bring the people of our world closer together. The winner of the 2011 Bridging the Borders Award is a brilliant film that deals with bridging the borders created by colonialism and hate. It shows how nations, once enemies, could come together and stand together against injustice. We proudly present the Bridging The Borders Award to Iciar Bollain’s, Even The Rain.” said Bijan.
Darryl Macdonald, Director of the Palm Springs International Film Festival believes that, “This wry, film-within-a-film provocatively 
explores issues of capitalism, colonial exploitation and social justice, without ever becoming dogmatic or didactic. It’s an accomplished and engrossing work, thought-provoking in the best possible sense.”
In her acceptance speech, read at the award ceremony, Iciar Bollain wrote: “On behalf of the entire team, from Bolivia, Argentina, Mexico and Spain, who have made this film we want to thank Cinema Without Borders and Palm Springs International Film Festival for having honored us with the Bridging the borders Award and the recognition it means. We are particularly enthused to receive this award from an organization which supports works that aim to break borders and aims to get us closer to each other. One of the first things that separate us all is poverty. As we found as we researched this film, both now, and five hundred years ago, poverty is no accident. While nature has played its part, mankind, has played a bigger part. Centuries of exploitation and violence have contributed to the extremes of poverty we find in every corner of the world. We hope our film celebrates those who have resisted injustice in the past, and who continue to organize and fight today. As Frederick Douglass, a onetime black slave said, “Power concedes nothing without demand, it never did and it never will.” We hope this award too honors all those people who risked their lives fighting against the privatization of their water. We would like also to dedicate it to Jafar Panahi and Mohamed Rasoulof, two Iranian filmmakers now in jail for their political beliefs and to all of those who can´t express themselves without risking their lives all over the world. “
Even The Rain, “Tambien la lluvia”
Spain—Directed by: Iciar Bollain .
In the Film: An idealistic young director (Gael Garcia Bernal) sets out to expose Christopher Columbus as a conquering imperialist; a man only after gold who exploited and destroyed indigenous cultures as he pursued his fortune. His producer (Luis Tosar), seemingly oblivious to the irony, moves production of the period-piece to Bolivia in order to take advantage of the lower cost of labor there. When they arrive, they encounter a population caught up in the throes of civic upheaval as the government tries to privatize the water supply. As the crisis around them increasingly encroaches upon the production,
the film focuses in on the director and producer, their personal evolution and unexpected reactions to the plight of those around them. Based on the Cochabamba Water Crisis of 2000, veteran Director Iciar Bollain’s powerful and layered film, set against historic and current events, lays bare the hypocrisies of a post-colonial world where injustices to the dispossessed continue unchecked. Beautifully executed period details contrasted with the raw energy of the current crisis blur the lines between fiction, reality, past and present. Vitagraph will release Even The Rain in the US in Feb. 2011.