Irish Abroad: Room picks up two awards at Los Cabos International Film Festival

The fourth Los Cabos International Film Festival in Mexico has announced the winners of its official competitions. The big winner was Lenny Abrahamson’s Room, which won the Cinemex Competencia award, as well as another audience award, adding to wins in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, the Hamptons, Mill Valley, and New Orleans.

Room sees writer Emma O’Donoghue adapt her own best-selling novel, which is told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who is being held captive in a small room along with his mother. To him the room is his world, but his mother knows different having been held there for 7 years. The film stars Brie Larson (Short Term 12, The Spectacular Now), Jacob Tremblay (The Smurfs 2, Somnia), Joan Allen (The Bourne Supremacy, Nixon) and William H. Macy (Shameless, Magnolia). The film also features Sean Bridgers (Rectify), Tom McCamus (The Samaritan) and Megan Park (What If).

Room is an Element Pictures and No Trace Camping production, in association with Telefilm Canada, Film4, and Bord Scannán na hÉireann/the Irish Film Board. It will be released in Irish cinemas on January 15th.

Other winners included Alejandra Márquez’s Semana Santa, Jessica Sanders’ Picking Cotton, Julio Hernández Cordón’s Te Prometo Anarquía, and A Flor de Piel by Paulina del Paso.

The festival draws attendees and filmmakers from across Mexico, the United States and around the world. 2014 festival honourees and special guests included Reese Witherspoon, Rosario Dawson, Diego Luna, and Atom Egoyan. Held in Cabo San Lucas, Los Cabos International Film Festival ran November 11th to 15th.