Leonor Will Never Die by Martika Ramirez Escobar got a Special Mention Award at the International Competition of the 23rd BAFICI Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival which run from April 19 – May 1, 2022 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Leonor Reyes was once an important figure in the Filipino film industry, but now her family struggles to pay the bills. After an accident leaves her in a coma and transports her inside an incomplete film, Leonor will be able to discover the perfect ending to her new story.

Action-packed meta-meta-cinema in the glorious style of the Filipino films from the ‘80s (those which, according to the censors from that era, “had no other purpose but to provide to the violence market”), the first film by Ramirez Escobar has just the right tone and ways to be as far from celebratory brainlessness as it is from petrifying reverence. The trick in Leonor Will Never Die doesn’t even qualify as a trick—it is as simple as choosing, at every crossroads, the path of generosity and nobility. Here we have lovable characters (both living and ghostly), there is music and dance, the is a broken fourth wall and a cry that should become a t-shirt: “Fuck you, Ronwaldo!” There is, above all, a film that recovers imagination, humor, surprise and emotion. That is, cinema. AM (BAFICI 2022)