Balibo wins Best Political Film; shares prize with Mexican doco
Robert Connolly’s 2009 film Balibo has won the top prize at the inaugural International Political Film Festival in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
The festival featured projects covering a range of political issues, coming from Australia, Poland, Palestine, Honduras, Paraguay, Chile, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, Guatemala, Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru and Argentina.
Directed by Robert Connolly, Balibo follows foreign correspondent Roger East as he investigates the disappearance of five Australian journalists who went missing during Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor. It won three AFI awards (Adapted Screenplay, Actor and Supporting Actor).
Balibo shared the prize with Presunto Culpable (Presumed Guilty), a documentary about the Mexican judicial system and the re-trial of Toño Zúñiga, a street vendor who had been sentenced for a crime he didn’t commit.
Presunto Culpable has become a box office hit in its native country, courtesy of the same judicial system it tried to expose. A witness who testified against the documentary’s main subject filed a complaint to the court claiming he did not give his consent to be featured in the film, and a judge then decided to order the suspension of all screenings of the film – a decision that was widely seen as an attempt at censorship.
The decision was ultimately reversed and the film has broken box office records for documentaries. Its ‘star’, Zúñiga, is about to launch a singing career.
