Get To Know Heineken Voces Award Winner Diego Araujo

With the TFI Latin America Media Arts Fund dedicated to bringing to the fore works of Latino filmmakers in the documentary or mixed media form, it was unusual to find a narrative work celebrated at an event for the grantees earlier this week at the Tribeca Film Festival. But with the first-ever Heineken Voces Award also handed out at the event, which encourages American-Latino filmmakers to create stories that reflect their diverse cultures, fiction work from the Latin community has a platform to shine. Diego Araujo’s Feriado was awarded the narrative Voces Award. Set in 1999, during the crumbling of Ecuador’s bank system, teenager Juan Pablo is struggling to find his place in the sheltered world of the country’s wealthy class. With the carnival holiday beginning he travels to the Andes with his family where he meets heavy-metal fan Juano, who opens his eyes to a new and liberating universe. “Ecuador is a country that is very diverse but is very, very divided,” Araujo told me after receiving the Voces award. “When I was 8 years old I was at a party and a couple of guys were trying to steal the cars of the guest. One of the people at the party caught one of the guys and beat the heck out of him, so that always stuck with me and that was the seed of how I started this story.” Another inspiration was the documentary TV series he made with his producer Hanne-Lovise Skartveit in Ecuador, which followed five kids from different social backgrounds for the last three months of their high school careers. Skartveit met Araujo when he came to her native Norway for a screenwriting lab and the two quickly hit it off. Through their collaboration she’s supported Araujo’s drive to tell Feriado, which he began writing seven years ago. “This is his first feature and he needed to make something that is personal to him,” she said. That drive has led the script finding the backing of CNCine and the Sundance-supported Oaxaca Lab before receiving the Voces Award. Living in New York City for years, Araujo recently moved back to Ecuador. And though he’s telling a story of his home country, he believes it’s also one that will relate to audiences in America. “We’re trying to create this love story,” he said. “The film is about discovering yourself and your sexual identity so we’re telling a universal story but at the same time we’re telling a particular story, we’re telling a period piece. But we also talk about this whole bank situation that happened in Ecuador, and I think Americans can relate to that.” Feriado will begin shooting in July. Araujo and Skartveit are still deciding on locations, they are also working on casting. Skilled American cinematographer Bradford Young (Pariah, Entre Nos) has signed on to be the film’s DP. Follow the film’s progress through Facebook, Twitter on its website. [Photo: Hanne-Lovise Skartveit and Diego Araujo]