MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Oct. 23, 2026 — Querida Fátima, a documentary that follows a Mexican couple’s decade-long search for justice after the murder of their daughter, received the SIGNIS Prize at the 20th Atlantidoc Uruguay International Documentary Film Festival.
The SIGNIS jury also awarded commendations to Home Away Home Close, by Chinese filmmaker YiFei Guo, and “Uyariy,” by Peruvian director Javier Corcuera. Both films are 2025 productions.
Querida Fátima, a 2026 Mexican production, is credited to Rodrigo Reyes, Dawn Valadez, Su Kim, Lorena Gutiérrez and Jesús Quintana. It centers on Lorena and Jesús, whose 12-year-old daughter, Fátima, was abused and murdered by three neighbors ten years ago as she walked home from school in Lerma, in central Mexico.
The jury described the film as a poignant and compelling account of how the parents have supported each other through repeated setbacks while pressing the Mexican government to hear them and deliver justice. It said the documentary “forces us to take a close look at the femicide present in our societies.”
Home Away Home Close tells the story of a young photographer who worked in Hong Kong before travelling to remote parts of Tibet, where he gave each person he met a photograph of themselves as a way of making visible some of the world’s most marginalized people. The jury noted the quality and lyricism of the images and said the film moves from the simplest aspects of human existence toward an encounter with the sacred.
Uyariy examines the Juliaca massacre of Jan. 9, 2023, when members of the Peruvian National Police cracked down on demonstrators at a rally in the country’s far south. Nineteen people were killed and more than 100 were injured. The film draws on the testimony of young people who witnessed the events, as well as that of Father Luis Zambrano Rojas. According to the jury, it brings attention to the marginalization of Indigenous peoples in Latin American societies.
The SIGNIS jury was chaired by Ricardo Yáñez of Argentina and Belgium, and included Alfredo Panadero of Spain and Alberto Pigola of Uruguay.
SIGNIS, the World Catholic Association for Communication, appoints juries at film festivals worldwide to recognize works that reflect human, social, and spiritual values.