Di­rec­tor Yao Rame­sar is one of five film­mak­ers nom­i­nat­ed for the in­au­gur­al Yel­low Robin Award of the Cu­ra�ao In­ter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val.

The award comes with a US$10,000 cash prize, trav­el to and ac­com­mo­da­tion in Rot­ter­dam for the 2014 edi­tion of the pres­ti­gious In­ter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val Rot­ter­dam (IFFR) and the win­ning film will screen at IFFR.

Films from the Caribbean and Latin Amer­i­ca will be con­sid­ered for this award to be hand­ed out at the sec­ond edi­tion of Cu­ra�ao IFFR tak­ing place April 4-7, 2013.

Rot­ter­dam was es­tab­lished in 1972 and is one of the world's most pres­ti­gious film fes­ti­vals com­pa­ra­ble in size to oth­er ma­jor Eu­ro­pean fes­ti­vals such as Cannes, Venice, Berlin, and Lo­carno with an at­ten­dance reach­ing 353,000 vis­i­tors in 2010.

Rame­sar se­cured the nom­i­na­tion for his film, SistaGod, which pre­miered at Toron­to In­ter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val (TIFF) in 2006 and re­mains the sole fea­ture film from T&T to have been an of­fi­cial se­lec­tion in an in­ter­na­tion­al film fes­ti­val.

SistaGod has screened through­out the Caribbean, Africa, In­dia, Eu­rope and the Amer­i­c­as–most re­cent­ly at the Fes­ti­val In­ter­na­cional del Nue­vo Cine Ha­vana Cu­ba 2013 fes­ti­val as part of the Caribbean call­ing pro­gramme cu­rat­ed by the T&T Film Fes­ti­val (ttff).

SistaGod al­so won Most Pop­u­lar Fea­ture Award at Flash­point Film Fes­ti­val in Ja­maica (2006); Best Caribbean Film and Best Di­rec­tor at Bridgetown Film Fes­ti­val Bar­ba­dos (2007) and The Caribbean Cin­e­ma Award from Stu­dio 66 in Trinidad (2007)."

Rame­sar was al­so ho­n­oured as the First Caribbean Lau­re­ate in Arts and Let­ters by the An­tho­ny N Sab­ga Caribbean Awards for Ex­cel­lence (AN­SCAFE).

In a re­lease, Rame­sar said of his nom­i­na­tion: "I'm hap­py that this award looks at Caribbean as well as Latin Amer­i­can cin­e­ma as I have been spend­ing some con­sid­er­able time in that par­tic­u­lar neck of the woods and am de­vel­op­ing a cou­ple of Span­ish lan­guage fea­tures for di­rec­tion.

"It's sig­nif­i­cant that when the film played in Ha­vana re­cent­ly, it was with Cuban-Span­ish sub­ti­tles which was much ap­pre­ci­at­ed by the lo­cal au­di­ence."

He added: "While we speak about ex­pand­ing in­to mar­kets, I think it is crit­i­cal to do more than just show up to shoot or pro­mote. Dur­ing a swing through Cen­tral Amer­i­ca (Panam�, Guatemala, Mex­i­co and Be­lize), I chose to spend time most im­por­tant­ly with the in­dige­nous first peo­ples, the Mayans, be­cause they are the his­toric ba­sis of these civil­i­sa­tions."

Rame­sar has two films to be re­leased lat­er this year–Her Sec­ond Com­ing, the se­quel to SistaGod, and Haiti Bride a post-earth­quake nar­ra­tive.

In June, he be­gins di­rec­tion of The Last Dance of the Karaoke King, a re­turn to film­mak­ing in Trinidad.

He has al­so be­gan de­vel­op­ing a fea­ture film he hopes to di­rect in Ecuador, which will be his first step in­to Latin Amer­i­can cin­e­ma.

Oth­er film­mak­ers nom­i­nat­ed for award in­clude Na­talia Beris­tain for No quiero dormir so­la (Mex­i­co), Ka­reem Mor­timer for Chil­dren of God (Ba­hamas), Es­te­ban In­sausti for Larga Dis­tan­cia (Cu­ba) and Chris Browne for Ghett'a Life (Ja­maica).

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