Greek American actress Zoe Kazan has won the award for Best Actress in a Narrative Feature Film at the Tribeca Film Festival.
The accolade was given to the young performer for her role in Bradley Rust Gray’s The Exploding Girl, which focuses on a young woman returning home from college for a summer.
Educated at Yale University, Kazan is the granddaughter of the brilliant Elia Kazar (whose career was unfairly tarnished by the hysteria of the 1950s McCarthy hearings).
Her first professional stage credit came in 2006 for her role in the Broadway revival of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.
For her role in The Exploding Girl, jurors of the Tribeca Film Festival commented, “Zoe shines in this understate role.
“Every component of this brilliantly restrained performance displays a command of her craft that stunned and moved this jury.”
Founded in 2002, the Tribeca Film Festival was created by Jane Rosenthal and Robert De Niro.
The festival aims to bring the international film community together with the public to experience the power of film.
The latest Nia Vardalos flick, My Life in Ruins, screened as a special closing presentation for the Festival.