• Submitted by: Camila
• Arts and Culture
• 12 / 09 / 2014

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Havana Film Festival awarded with honorary Coral award to famed Puerto Rican actor Benicio Del Toro, who expressed his excitement and joy not only to receive the award but also to present his latest production in the contest.

The award was given to the actor as one of the "most acclaimed figures of his generation" in Latin America and its "broad dramatic record", the event organizers said. Speaking at the ceremony the actor said "the affection, love and respect," he has for Cuba, which he said is his "family".

It was then projected on two consecutive functions the film Escobar: Lost Paradise, in which the interpreter brings to life the "pattern" of Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, character who, as Del Toro has said in the past, has "two faces" and "wasted his talent when choosing a wrong way ".

The film, directed by Italian Andrea Di Stefano, is inspired by the true story of a young Canadian surfer who travels to Colombia on vacation and falls for a young Colombian woman who happens to be the niece of Pablo Escobar, who, despite becoming good friend, tried to assassinate him.

This new character is added to the gallery of Del Toro, which contains his characterizations of Javier Rodríguez in Traffic (2001), by American Steven Soderbergh, and which won an Academy Award, and Jack Jordan in 21 grams (2003 ), under the orders of  Mexican Alejandro González Iñárritu. Just as Che tapes, Argentine and Che, guerrilla, both of Soderbergh, in which he starred as Ernesto Che Guevara, and presented at the Festival of Havana in 2008.

In this edition of the festival, the presence of Benicio Del Toro has also coincided with the display of another of his latest films, Guardians of the Galaxy, which represents the obsessive accumulator largest collection of interstellar wildlife, relics and species space.

Source: Diario de Cuba