'Prize' tops Morelia fest

'The Prize'Mexico City-- Paula Markovitch's "The Prize" shown itself properly named once again Saturday since it needed best fiction feature within the ninth Morelia Worldwide Film Festival, wrapping today.The drama set among Argentina's Dirty War also won best picture at Guadalajara in March and acquired two Silver Bears within the Berlin film festival for artistic achievement. Handled by Urban Distribution Intl. for worldwide sales, the version examined now stood a particularly transformed ending and will be a strong favorite beginning the best day's the festival.Within the closing ceremony, fest veep Cuauhtemoc Cardenas stated round the film's winning streak, "I am hoping her next film is called 'El Oscar'."The jury prize acquires Markovitch support for digital distribution in Mexico within the distrib wing of Canana Films, the indie shingle founded by thesps Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna.Everyone else prize visited "Expiration Date", the initial outing for Kenya Marquez - a classic director in the Guadalajara Worldwide Film Festival. "Date" also acquired a jury special mention as did Hari Sama's "The Imagine Lu" and Michel Lipkes' "Malaventura".Best documentary visited "Silvestre Pantaleon" by Roberto Olivares Ruiz and Jonathan D. Amith. Doc shows just a little indigenous town's struggle to get the money to do a traditional ceremony.The pic will screen at next year's Ambulante Documentary Film Festival - a project run by Canana's sister documentary division - furthermore to Mexican digital distribution support within the shingle.Special mentions visited "Practicing any War" by Juan Manuel Sepulveda and "The Smallest Place" by Tatiana Huezo, which acquired a distinctive prize for top documentary directed having a lady.Short fiction champion "Mari Pepa" by Samuel Isamu Kishi is qualified for Oscar consideration similar to the 2 animation shorts that shared that category's prize "Black Toy" by Sofia Carrillo and "Requiem for Eternity" by Alberto Resendiz Gomez.Emerging within the festival's production workshop Morelia Lab, several projects acquired co-production honours. The Imcine Prize, worth about $3,800 plus goodies, was presented with for the winning Mexican project "Temporada Baja" by Nicolas Celis. From Argentina, Daniel Andres Wernes' "La Turista" acquired the similarly sized Cinepolis Prize for top LatAm project.Distrib/shingle Argos Cine made the decision to provide about $230,000 in co-production funding to Socorro Mendez's production "Haz por Venir", as well as the lab jury also gave mentions to producers April Shannon (Mexico) for "La Noche p Franco", "Vacia Casas" from Hatuey Lavielle (Mexico), Alejandro Prieto's (Colombia) "Esperando a los Barbaros", "Primate" from Cynthia Gabrenja (Argentina) and "Uncut" produced by Laura Pino (Mexico). Contact the number newsroom at news@variety.com