Marimbas Award

$25,000 Marimbas Award is a cash competition for the jury-selected U.S. or international narrative feature film (60 min or longer) that best exemplifies richness and resonance for cinema’s future. The cash prize will go to the lead producer (production company), but is eligible to be split with a US distributor, if there is a US company that has made a commitment to release the winning film in US theaters prior to a VOD release.

A marimba is a variation of a xylophone that produces a deeper, richer and more resonant tone that a traditional xylophone. The marimba originated in Guatemala and Central America approximately 400 years ago and remains popular to this day in a wide variety of musical disciplines. The name of Miami Film Festival’s top award is inspired by the 2011 winner of the Festival’s top award, Julio Hernandez Cordon’s Marimbas from Hell, which embodies the spirit of forward-looking cinema.

2023 WINNER

Luis Zahera as Zan and Denis Ménochet as Antoine Denis in The Beasts. Courtesy of Greenwich Entertainment.

The Beastsdirected by Rodrigo Sorogoyen.
Antoine and Olga are a French couple who settled long ago in a village from the interior of Galicia. There they lead a quiet life, grow their vegetables and rehabilitate abandoned houses, although their coexistence with the locals is not as idyllic as they wish. Their refusal to implement a wind farm will accentuate the disagreements with the neighbors, especially with the brothers Xan and Lorenzo, taking coexistence to a situation of no return.

Supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and sponsored by FlixLatino, Alacran Group and Centro Cultural Espanol Miami.

2022 WINNER
Freda,
directed by Géssica Généus.
Jury:
Damon D’Oliveria, April Dobbins, and Rubén Peralta Rigaud.

2021 WINNER
Quo Vadis, Aida?, directed by Jasmila Žbanić.
Jury: Mollye Asher, Claire Breukel, and Samuel Kishi Leopo

2020 WINNER
La Llorona, directed by Jayro Bustamante, lead produced by La Casa de Produccíon of Guatemala in co-production with Mexico, and distributed in the US by Shudder.
Jury: Álvar Carretero de la Fuente, Rupert Lloyd and Elena Manrique.

2019 WINNER
Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s Birds of Passage
Ciudad Lunar Productions of Colombia and The Orchard (US distributor)

2018 WINNER
Diego Lerman’s A Sort of Family (Una especie de familia)

2017 WINNER
Cristian Jimenez and Alicia Scherson’s Family Life (Vida de familia)

2016 WINNER
Pascal Caucheteux and Jacques Audiard’s Dheepan

2015 WINNER
Luis Albores, Erika Avila, Carlos Mesa and Armon O’Farrill’s The Obscure Spring (Las oscuras primaveras)

2014 WINNER
Fernando Coimbra’s A Wolf at the Door