Missing Cuban Actors Win Awards at Tribeca

Missing Cuban Actors Win Awards at Tribeca
Published April 27, 2012
Fox News Latino

"Una Noche," the movie that stars suspected Cuban defectors Javier Núñez
Florián and Anailín de la Rúa de la Torre, has won several awards at
this year's Tribeca Film Festival.

The awards were announced Thursday night. A Best Actor nod was given to
both Dariel Arrechada and Florián, who star in "Una Noche." The film is
about Cuban teenagers, struggling in poverty, who decide to flee to Florida.

The storyline, which is a fiction, became reality when Núñez Florián and
another actor from the film, de la Rúa de la Torre, disappeared in Miami
en route to Tribeca from Havana. They are presumed to have defected from
their native Cuba, where the film was shot. They have been missing since
last week.

"Una Noche" also won best cinematography for Trevor Forrest and Shlomo
Godder's photography, and Mulloy was cited as best new narrative director.

Best documentary went to Nisha Pahuja's "The World Before Her," a film
that juxtaposes the lives of Indian girls pursuing pageant glory as Miss
India with those participating in a Hindu fundamentalist movement.

The Dutch filmmaker Jeroen van Velzen, whose "Wavumba" depicts fishermen
on the coast of Kenya, was named best new documentary director.

The Tribeca Film Festival concludes Sunday.

In a recent interview with Fox News Latino, Arrechada said he has no
hard feelings about his castmates suddenly disappearing.

"I wish my co-stars could be here with me to join all of us in
celebrating "Una Noche" and share this incredible experience," said
Arrechada, who's in New York for the movie's premier at the Tribeca Film
Festival.

"Though we all miss them, and I miss them very much, I am confident they
will do what is best for them. My heart is with them and I hope they are
safe and well."

Mulloy agreed with Arrechada.

"Though they've made difficult choices about what to do at present, I
wish them the very best in all their endeavors and I hope I will get to
see them again soon," Mulloy told Fox News Latino in a statement. "It
was a pleasure working with them. I would love to know that they are well."

Other films like the African child soldier drama "War Witch" won best
film and its 15-year-old star earned best actress.

Tribeca announced its winners as the 11th annual edition of the New York
festival wound down.
Montreal filmmaker Kim Nguyen shot "War Witch" in the Congo, where his
young lead, Rachel Mwanza, was previously living on the streets.

Mwanza, who earlier won best actress at the Berlin Film Festival, plays
a pregnant teenager swept up in an unspecified revolution.

"I realized quickly that she has an immense talent," Nguyen said in an
earlier interview. "When I asked her how she does it — how she bursts
out in laughter, how she starts crying so normally — she just told me
that she thinks of her past."

The festival jury said "War Witch" ''balances scenes of crazy enemy
hatred with moments of luminous private love.

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