The 20th Anniversary of the Chicago Latino Film Festival ended on Thursday, April 29th and the Audience Choice Winner, which is determined by moviegoers, is Amarte duele (Love Hurts), a film production from Mexico.

Amarte duele (Love Hurts), directed by Fernando Sariñana, is a love story of two teenagers, Ulises and Renata. Their budding romance seems invincible, but their racial and social differences are facts their friends and family will not let them forget. The film touches on a topic that is often overlooked, the racial conflict between Indigenous and Mestizo Mexicans.

The film was nominated in 2003 for Mexico’s Ariel Awards in the following categories: Best Actor (Luis Fernando Peña), Best Original Score (Enrique Quezadas), and Best Supporting Actor (Armando Hernández). It won several MTV Movie Awards (Mexico) and won various awards at the Cartegena, Mar Del Plata, Montreal, Quebec, Palm Springs and Santa Barbara film festivals.

As the Audience Choice winner Amarte duele (Love Hurts), the film will be screened for the 2005 Chicago Latino Film Festival and the director will receive the award at one of next year’s Festival galas.

In second place is a film made in Chicago by director Juan Frausto, Once Upon a Time in the Hood. The Puerto Rican film, Bala Perdida (Stray Bullet) by Raúl Merchand Sánchez took third place.

The Chicago Latino Film Festival presented 111 feature length and short films and videos. The Festival serves as a vehicle to break the barriers of stereotypes and provoke the audience to challenge mainstream ideals of the Latino identity by showing, through film, that Latinos are defined by more than 20 Iberoamerican countries and come from all social and racial backgrounds.