Discoveries from Colombia World Cinema

“The memory goes away, the images stay…” The archive has a life of its own when chance chooses the path, then the images play with memory. Fragments of the life that passes through me, recorded on video without any defined pretension and therefore destined not to be, even when they already are, dialogue with Jonas Mekas who in turn communicates with J.L. Guerín in 2008. This network of conversations that arise from intimacy are pyrotechnics of memory, first about Jonas' way of life and way of looking, about his method, and second about my life and my relationship with the images manufactured by through the machine that Dziga Vertov called the “time telescope.”

More than 50 years of armed conflict among the FARC, the ELN, paramilitary groups and the Colombian government have left behind eight million victims. During this time, thousands of minors have been part of the armed groups. They are also consider victims because their childhood is always going to be linked to a weapon; the jungle was their home and the battalion, their family.

Jerónimo is a young boy who lives on a beach on the Colombian Pacific coast where he arrived with his mother after being forcibly displaced. After his mother’s death, Jerónimo hears about a local legend that claims that some people turn into whales after their death. With the help of his friends he undertakes a dangerous journey to find her

Julio, an eight-years-old kid, wakes up one morning to be send away from home right after his grandmother died. This takes away his opportunity to mourn her.

An animated graphic diary that reflects on how dependency, anxiety, friendship, loneliness, self-recognition, and family are perceived. Through panels and textures, the shory has a a conceptual narrative full of symbols. It follows the emotional trail of a process, which aims to purge an experience.

Lorena, a 45-year-old transgender person, a refugee in the Catholic religion, fasts for 9 days in search of her liberation and acceptance as a woman. In the process, she discovers that her deliverance is not in faith. A critique of social exclusion and the Catholic religion as an institution.

Documentary aspects of the city with old archive shots that allude to the “450 years of the founding of Cali.” A parallel is drawn between the memory of the past salvageable in photographs and the visual freshness of the present printed in each of its manifestations. The statue of the founder De Belalcázar, the chorus of “Hey, see”, the rumba in the peripheral neighborhoods, the photographer Fernell Franco and the afternoon light of Cali.

In the midst of the color and rhythm of the plains, with the description of herds and festive practices of the “coleo”, a horse trainer tells the story of his father, a liberal bandit from the time of Guadalupe Salcedo. Through a love story, the life of a typical family from a beautiful and unexplored region of the country is told: the Eastern Plains. A boy and a beautiful girl are the other characters that complete the picture of evocations.

A politician who is emerging as a presidential candidate for his party loses his voice on the eve of the great convention that will elect him. His advisor, an unscrupulous and bold man, urged by the limited time they have left, hatches the idea of ​​replacing him with a “double” since he remembers a character who looks strikingly similar to the candidate. A modest barber prepares intensively and the applause for his first speech is thunderous.

Historical reconstruction of the last years of the Santander heroine, who from El Socorro led a good part of the community movement against the Spanish yoke.

Documentary discovers Simón Bolívar's campaigns towards the south starting from the Boyacá Bridge and has been sponsored by the Colombian government on the occasion of the celebrations of the Sesquicentennial of the Battle of Ayacucho.

Two radio hosts suffer all kinds of adventures to win a radio contest¸ when one of them¸ attracted by the charms of a beautiful girl¸ finds himself involved in a confusing situation as he goes from being the victim of a robbery to alleged author of the same.

A man falls asleep while driving and finds himself transported to an animated world reliving his past.

Intimate view around the life of the famous political leader, Simón Bolivar.

Created from abandoned or lost VHS home movies; Fractured memories is an audiovisual project dedicated to exploring the set of images that materialize the concept of memory in the individual, and how, like memories, these same images are altered, damaged, manipulated and permeated by time to the point of forming fragments. diffuse that make possible the subjectivization of memory in people.

Log of a trip to the cemetery where the grave of the Russian filmmaker and poet Andrei Tarkovsky lies.

The Nazarenes of Zipaquirá celebrate Holy Week by making a parade full of images and sacred objects. The stations of the cross, the death and resurrection of Jesus are narrated through the heavy sacred images that the Nazarenes carry; making simile with the suffering of Jesus on the stations of the cross. The purpose of the celebration is to exalt the liturgy, sacramental veneration and sacrifice as an act of devotion.

In an exercise of imaginary correspondences, a man faces leaving the cement factory in which he has always worked in and where he has also laid down roots. An immersive and silent meditation on work, its imprint on the workers and its role in the formation of a family.

EL BEAT is an immersive and dreamlike experience about music, rebellion and freedom. A musician in search of his roots and identity arrives in San Basilio de Palenque, the first free city in the Americas. There, he will meet Rafael Cassiani, a traditional Palenquero master who preserves a very old musical tradition. Through this encounter, the story of Benkos Biohó, the African slave who rebelled and fled to find Palenque will come to light. This is a true story and is presented to the viewer as a docu-fantasy.

Detective Francisca of the prosecutor's office investigates the strange disappearance of Laura, a young reporter. Her only clue are the bizarre recordings found in a crashed helicopter that seem to show a worldwide conspiracy regarding the zombie virus. A top-secret organization in Colombia struggles to control the virus and find a cure amidst betrayals, intrigues, zombie attacks and a mutant baby that spits acid.

Two little birds live happily together in a tree. One is white, the other is black. One day, some red birds happily fly into a hole at the top of the tree. The two birds try to get in but are rejected. They will do everything they can to be accepted.

George starts a miniature wooden figurine business to return to his humble country home.

A relationship fragmented memories, deteriorated by time as an old VHS, intertwine a parchwork quilt displaying a couple road trip to misunderstanding. In the track both travelers look for happiness venturing more south each day, until the road hit the end of the world and they found out there were no beyond.

A documentary performance: three young queer artists from Cartagena create a character with which they break into and transgress the public space before the unarmed gaze and reaction of the passers-by who populate the social landscape.

The elders, heirs of the African spirit Balanta, fight to keep the musical tradition and spirituality alive in Timbiquí, a territory devastated by conflicts in the Colombian Pacific

Three young people living in an area of armed conflict, they propose to fish the corpse of a NN (unidentified body) because according to the belief by rescuing a body from the east river it becomes a good luck charm.

From Colombia to New York, this is a documentary about the resistance, legacy and identity of the afro-Caribbean community, told through the songs, memories and experiences of three women and the Bullerengue tradition that bonds and heals them across generations.

A story of pain and misery, a human theme and of palpitating actuality. It expresses all the anguish that the poet put into the song. This film was withdrawn from the billboard six days after its first screening.

First full-length sound film made by the Acevedo Brothers, it shows the birth and childhood of Enrique Olaya Herrera, born and baptized in Guateque. It also presents the gestation and launching of the presidential candidacy of Eduardo Santos for the years 1938 to 1942. Finally there are all the ceremonies and tributes carried out since the corpse of Enrique Olaya Herrera touches Colombian soil in Buenaventura until his burial in the cemetery of Bogota. (Newspaper "El Tiempo" - Bogotá, May 29, 1937)

The film, divided into two parts with a total of twenty acts, narrates in a chronic and intimate way the life and heroic deeds of General Rafael Uribe Uribe.

Dealing with a prince (probably oriental?) in his choice between two beautiful women, when he chooses one, the other commits suicide by drowning herself in a lagoon. Not a single frame of this production is known.

Loving is a beautiful experience, but struggling with the absence of someone who filled all the spaces can confront us with the decision to reconquer or let go.

“Cut!”… and yet the camera keeps rolling. Filming is an immersive experience in the Colombian coffee fields, in which Robert Bresson’s Notes on the Cinematographer reveal themselves as in a palimpsest. The director of The Sheriff (VdR 2019) presents a strikingly beautiful medium-length film, a consideration on the act of filming itself.

In this audiovisual piece, we go to the meeting of the body with dance, defined in documentary videodance format, narrating the stories of four people, sullied by their social conditions, who corporeally and in dialogue with the lens, poeticizing their lives, we spend from everyday life , contrasting with their imagined worlds. Our protagonists without specific experience in dance, belong to the LGBTQI+ sector, and each one belongs to other communities at the same time: Afro-descendant population, with disabilities, women, sex workers, some of them illiterate, older adults.

This adventure begins in a traditional shoe shop, each material and tool comes to life to the rhythm of the music, witnessing the manufacture of a pair of little shoes. Hilarious and funny fable about the wonderful trade of the shoemaker, a tribute to handwork.

Colombia could lose all its glaciers in thirty years if current emission rates persist. Fernando, the first Colombian to touch the summit of Everest, and Beto, an environmentalist and climber, are on an expedition with other mountaineers searching for the last glaciers in Colombia.

This documentary from Señal Colombia takes viewers on a journey through Colombia's badlands, showcasing the beauty of these unique ecosystems and the practices of the U’wa people that live there and envision sustainable development that opposes the harmful mining practices that threaten the natural balance.

A mysterious and wandering gunman faces hostility from Indians and whites, inhabitants of fields and towns whose place and time are also a mystery.

Alexánder Ruiz Morales was born in Salento. After several years he returns to the municipality of Quindío, but he finds it different: more complex, chaotic and explosive. His perception is different, because although he does not see, his other senses tell him how the most touristic municipality of Quindío is.

Two filmmakers, one mother and one son, find answers and strength in the struggles of Indigenous Nasa in Cauca, Colombia as they document their journeys decades apart.

Documentary based on painter Augusto Rivera.

Being empathetic or hypocritical? Be optimistic or pessimistic? Be an angel or a devil? Adulthood brings many challenges. The extraordinary Carolina Cuervo, makes us an irreverent and funny analysis of how to deal with the undesirable effects of the 40’s crisis. She show us to face all the nerves and insecurities. But of course, without letting anything take our peace away.

This cinematographic work was taken from the theater to the screen after it was premiered on June 21, 1924 by the Adams-Nieva company at the Municipal Theater and withdrawn by the "Junta de censura" (Censorship Board). Only some journalistic testimonies of its existence remain.

Patron Mono portrays the lower Cauca river canyon, located in the department of Antioquia, currently affected by the crisis of the Hidroituango dam. The muleteers, fishermen and artisanal miners that make up the canyon culture refer to the Cauca River as Patron Mono (Blonde Boss), both for its yellow color and for the gold found in its waters and sands. For them, it is the best employer in the world because it does not set schedules and never refuses to pay, that is, it always provides them with fish and gold. The images that make up the triptych of projections are shots from gold artisanally from the Cauca River, as well as shots filmed in the same canyon.

A documentary that proposes a narrative journey through the reflections and experiences of feminist lesbians in Bogota (Colombia) about political identity, love and relationships, violence in their sexual and affective bonds, as well as their learning and healing.

Through the reflections of a father and daughter about themselves and their close relationship with their natural environment and the animal world, we embark on a journey deep into the Altagracia Reserves in the Colombian Orinoco region.

A pregnant man, homosexual parents, infertile moms. Ruled by desire: Baby on demand. The revolution of fertility.