The Miami International Film Festival Comes to a Close

The 27th Annual Miami International Film Festival closed with a special awards ceremony at the Gusman Center for the Performing Arts, on March 13, honoring the best selections in world and Florida cinema. The event concluded 10 days of 115 films from 45 countries, with a special screening of the Oscar-winning “Best Foreign Film,” The Secret in Their Eyes, to round out the night.

The ceremony presented two sets of awards for each category, one of which was the Grand Jury Prize selected by a committee of international entertainment industry professionals and the other, an Audience Award that was selected by festival goers.

Celebrating the works of up-and-coming filmmakers from around the world, the World Competition presented its award for the Grand Jury Prize to Lola by Brillante Mendoza while No One Knows About Persian Cats by Bahman Ghobadi took home the Audience Award.

Artistic Director Tiziana Finzi introduced two new competition and award categories this year including the Cineuropa Prize for Best European Film which was awarded to the film Ordinary People by Vladimir Perisic. The prize is aimed towards promoting financing, production and promotion of European films.

Also new to the film festival this year is the Diesel Online Shorts Competition, which is a viewer-driven award sponsored by the Italian clothing and accessories fashion house, Diesel, which aims to promote innovative short films. The Grand Jury Prize was awarded to the short film Telegastrovision by Antanas Janauskas and the Audience Award to Zombies Vs. Vampires by Franz Palomares.