Alumna receives Emerging Talent Award
The short film El Último Consejo (The Last Council), directed by alumna Itandehui Jansen, has won the Emerging Talent Award at the ImagineNative Film & Media Arts Festival in Toronto.
The short film El Último Consejo (The Last Council), directed by alumna Itandehui Jansen, has won the Emerging Talent Award at the ImagineNative Film & Media Arts Festival in Toronto.
Based on a true story
Itandehui made the short film El Último Consejo as part of her portfolio for her PhD project in the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts of Leiden University. The short twelve-minute film takes place in an indigenous Mixtec village community in Mexico. A fight breaks out when a new council takes office and money suddenly disappears from the village cash fund. The conflict illustrates the struggle between tradition and modernity in this group of Mixtec Indians.
Jansen based the film on the script of scenario-writer Armando Bautista Garcia who lived through these events in his youth. She did not use experienced actors but chose instead to cast local inhabitants of the region. Jansen is very involved with her topic. Her mother is also a Mexican Indian and Itandehui herself lived in Mexico for the first five years of her life.
Prizes and filmscreenings
The same short film received the Special Jury Award at the Viña del Mar International Film & Video Festival in Chile last year and the prize for best short film at the Rodando Festival in Mexico.
Her other short film, Alma y Esperanza, was also screened at the ImagineNative Film & Media Arts Festival in Toronto. Earlier this year, the film was selected for the Short Film Corner of the Cannes International Film Festival.