A scene from Leonor Will Never Die. Image from Spirit Awards website
Filipino independent film “Leonor Will Never Die” has bagged a nomination for Best International Film at the 2023 Spirit Awards, a distinguished award-giving body in the United States that caters to low- and mid-budget movies.
“Leonor” is a film directed by Martika Ramirez Escobar, which had previously won in the prestigious Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, also in the US, where it was given the Special Jury Prize for Innovative Spirit at the World Cinema Dramatic section. The movie made Escobar the first Filipino feature film director to win at the festival, which was held online last January.
The movie follows a retired screenwriter, Leonor Reyes, (played by Sheila Francisco) who was well-known in the Philippine film industry for her action films during her heydays. Now old and ailing, with mounting bills to pay, and still coming to grips with the death of her son, she revisited an unfinished script about a fearless gangster protagonist trying to avenge his brother’s murder. While doing so, a freak accident landed her in a coma, in which a sequence of reality and fantasy crossed lines, and she found herself becoming part of her own script.
Official trailer of Leonor Will Never Die. Credits: Music Box Films
Aside from “Leonor”, other film contenders for the category are the following: Saint Omer (France), Return to Seoul (Cambodia), Corsage (Austria/Luxembourg/France/Belgium/Italy/England), and Joyland (Pakistan/USA).
The Spirit Awards describes itself as the primary fundraiser for Film Independent’s year-round programs, “which cultivate the careers of emerging filmmakers and promote diversity and inclusion within the filmed entertainment industry.”
Winners are voted on exclusively by current Film Independent members to receive full voting benefits, including access to nominee screeners.