Jayro Bustamante is celebrating a big win…

The Guatamalan director’s genocide revenge drama La Llorona, set during the 1960s civil war in his country, has won the Venice Days Director Award, the top nod in Venice’s independently run section.

This is the second feature by Bustamante, who put Guatemalan cinema on the map with his debut, Ixcanul. 

The film takes its cue from the acquittal of a former Guatemalan general whose initial sentence is overturned on a procedural pretext. This unleashes a vengeful supernatural spirit upon his household.

Brazilian director Karim Aïnouz presided over the jury formed by 28 young European movie buffs. They praised the film for being “an intimate ghost story told through a vivid female character.”

The award comes with a cash prize of $22,000, which is split equally between the director and the film’s international distributor, in this case Film Factory Entertainment.