Picture about fight for religious freedom by Roman Catholic rebels premiered at Toronto and also screened in Rotterdam.

Franco-Mexican director Matias Meyer’s The Last Christeros has won the Grand Prize at the Cinélatino film festival, running March 31 to April 1 in the southern French city of Toulouse.

The film — based on Antonio Estrada’s novel Rescoldo, the Last Christeros about Roman Catholic rebels fighting for religious freedom in Mexico in the 1920s – will receive a €6,500 grant, to help subtitle and release the film in France.

Chilean director Alejandro Fernandez Almendras’ stoic love story By the Fire (Sentados frente al fuego) received a Special Mention.

Colombian director William Andrès Vega’s upcoming film La Sirga, won the top prize in the Cinema Under Construction section, Cinélatino’s joint initiative with the San Sebastian Film Festival aimed at post-production.

Vega’s film, about a young Colombian woman who holes up in a dilapidated hotel in the foothills of the Andes to escape armed conflict at home, is a coproduction between Columbian Contravia Films and Burning Blue, French Cine-Sud Promotion and Mexican Film Tank and Puntoguionpunto. 

The European distributor and exhibition prize in the same section — sponsored by the international CICAE art-house cinema confederation and Europa Distribution — went to Uruguayan Ana Guevara and Leticia Jorge’s joint debut feature Aunt Agua (Tanta Agua).