Despite being a very sporadic and low-budget production, the Uruguayan film industry exploded with the success of the film 25 Watts (2001), which received ten awards including Best Film at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam and Best Debut Film at the Festival Havana. A few years another Uruguayan film found success; Whisky (2004) won the Goya Award for best Spanish foreign language film, the FIPRESCI prize at the Cannes film Festival, and the Iris prize of Uruguay.
Similarly, 2005 was a year of great exposure when Jorge Drexler was the first Uruguayan to receive an Oscar prize for his song Al otro lado del río (the first non-English speaker to get this award). It was part of the soundtrack of the Motorcycle Diaries, a film about a young Argentinean’s journey through Latin America, the man who would later become the revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara.
Since then, the national production of quality films has grown exponentially, from which we recommend the following:
El baño del Papa (2007 E. Fernández / C. Charlone)
Mal día para pescar (2009, A. Brechner)
MissTacuarembó (2010 , M. Sastre)
Mundialito (2010, S. Bednarik)
La casa muda (2010 , G. Hernandez)
Reus (2011 , Pineiro)
Artigas – La redota (2011 , C. Charlone)
Anina (2013 , A. Soderguit)
