'Prize' tops Morelia fest

'The Prize'Mexico City-- Paula Markovitch's "The Prize" demonstrated itself appropriately named once more Saturday because it required best fiction feature in the ninth Morelia Worldwide Film Festival, wrapping today.The drama set among Argentina's Dirty War also won best picture at Guadalajara in March and acquired two Silver Bears in the Berlin film festival for artistic achievement. Handled by Urban Distribution Intl. for worldwide sales, the version tested now were built with a particularly changed ending and would be a strong favorite starting the ultimate day's the festival.In the closing ceremony, fest veep Cuauhtemoc Cardenas said around the film's winning streak, "I really hope her next film is known as 'El Oscar'."The jury prize obtains Markovitch support for digital distribution in Mexico in the distrib wing of Canana Films, the indie shingle founded by thesps Gael Garcia Bernal and Diego Luna.The crowd prize visited "Expiration Date", the very first outing for Kenya Marquez - an old director from the Guadalajara Worldwide Film Festival. "Date" also acquired a jury special mention as did Hari Sama's "The Imagine Lu" and Michel Lipkes' "Malaventura".Best documentary visited "Silvestre Pantaleon" by Roberto Olivares Ruiz and Jonathan D. Amith. Doc shows a little indigenous town's struggle to obtain the money to carry out a traditional ceremony.The pic will screen at next year's Ambulante Documentary Film Festival - a project run by Canana's sister documentary division - additionally to Mexican digital distribution support in the shingle.Special mentions visited "Training for any War" by Juan Manuel Sepulveda and "The Littlest Place" by Tatiana Huezo, that also acquired a unique prize for the best documentary directed with a lady.Short fiction champion "Mari Pepa" by Samuel Isamu Kishi is qualified for Oscar consideration much like the 2 animation shorts that shared that category's prize "Black Toy" by Sofia Carrillo and "Requiem for Eternity" by Alberto Resendiz Gomez.Emerging in the festival's production workshop Morelia Lab, several projects acquired co-production awards. The Imcine Prize, worth about $3,800 plus treats, was handed towards the winning Mexican project "Temporada Baja" by Nicolas Celis. From Argentina, Daniel Andres Wernes' "La Turista" acquired the similarly sized Cinepolis Prize for the best LatAm project.Distrib/shingle Argos Cine decided to offer about $230,000 in co-production funding to Socorro Mendez's production "Haz por Venir", and also the lab jury also gave mentions to producers April Shannon (Mexico) for "La Noche p Franco", "Vacia Casas" from Hatuey Lavielle (Mexico), Alejandro Prieto's (Colombia) "Esperando a los Barbaros", "Primate" from Cynthia Gabrenja (Argentina) and "Uncut" created by Laura Pino (Mexico). Contact the range newsroom at news@variety.com