Yellow Rose took home both the Best Narrative Feature Award (U.S. Cinema) and the Audience Award for Best Feature at the 23rd Annual Urbanworld Film Festival on Sunday, Broadway World reports.
The film follows the story of Rose, an undocumented Filipina immigrant who dreams of becoming a country music star. Played by Eva Noblezada (Hadestown, Miss Saigon), Rose struggles with her identity when her mom (Princess Punzalan) is detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and she is forced to flee.
Yellow Rose is the feature debut of Filipina American writer, director and producer Diane Paragas. The movie, initially released in May, also features country singer Dale Watson as himself and Filipina actress and singer Lea Salonga as Rose’s aunt.
According to Broadway World, the five-day Urbanworld Film Festival in New York has an estimated attendance of over 15,000 and is consistently chosen by Hollywood studios and indie film distributors as the place to premiere films.
After the festival screening and Q&A on Saturday, the creative team behind Yellow Rose “headed to nosh on fried chicken at Jollibee,” Broadway World reported.
Urbanworld isn’t the only place Yellow Rose has found success. Since its release, it has collected several awards.
Variety reported that the coming-of-age story was awarded the Grand Jury Award for outstanding North American narrative feature at the 35th Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, within a week of its release.
Since then, the film exploring the plight facing many immigrant families in the U.S. has also picked up the Special Jury Prize at the 2019 Asian American International Film Festival, the Grand Jury Prize for Best Narrative Feature at the 2019 Bentonville Film Festival and 2019 CAAMFest.
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