It All Started At the End is the self-portrait of the “Grupo de Cali”, also known as “Caliwood”, a group of cinephiles, who in the midst of the wild partying and historical chaos of the 70s and 80s, managed to produce a body of work now considered a fundamental part of Colombia’s film heritage. It is also is the clinical history of the filmmaker, who fell gravely ill during the production of the film. It’s the story of a survivor.Read More »
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From their explosive first meeting, through the many ups and downs of their relationship, Eva and Candela tracks two young , beautiful women as they try and negotiate the trappings of success, the tyranny of distance and the pull of family. As they hurtle toward a seemingly inevitable breakup, reminders of their love, commitment, and sexual passion call into question what they have become and offer the chance to rekindle what once was.Read More »
Roa has no job and a family to feed. Gaitán, leader of the Colombian Liberal Party, is a man whom he admires greatly. Perhaps Gaitán will have work for him. On the contrary. Gaitán treats him with disdain. A naive, superstitious man, Roa’s disappointment quickly turns to anger and bitterness. Seething with revenge, he begins to plot Gaitán’s assasination. Before he gets too far, however, Roa comes to his senses. Unfortunately, things are no longer under Roa’s control. Too many people are involved and his family begins receiving threatening messages. Roa is damned either way… Read More »
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The protagonists don’t speak – which only makes the images all the more telling in this drama about three women who manage to escape a dangerous war situation in different places in the jungle. One day, La Mona stabs her sleeping boyfriend, a brutal paramilitary commander. She flees. A second woman, Rocío, also has to leave her place of residence, as it is surrounded by paramilitary troops. Nelsa is one of the paramilitaries, but she turns her back on them after being forced to bury the dismembered bodies of executed farmers.Read More »
Ten-year-old Axel lives with his mother and three sisters in a flat in Buenos Aires. The mother, Margarita, lives locked up in a room beyond the bathroom, while the children are her prison guards. The children communicate with her mother through a small window, giving her blankets, DVDs and reading material and celebrating her birthday in the corridor. When she’s eventually had enough, it’s Axel that must decide what to do.Read More »
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“You are nothing but a white!” So shouts indigenous Amazonian shaman Karamakate (Nilbio Torres) to the seemingly on-the-level but still suspicious German scientist/explorer Theodor (Jan Bijvoet) in Ciro Guerra’s enthralling, politically tinged, psychedelic, historical adventure film Embrace of the Serpent. Reversing the perspective of more familiar movies such as Werner Herzog’s Fitzcarraldo or Roland Joffé’s The Mission, Embrace of the Serpent’s snaky crawl up the river investigates imperialism’s cultural pollution from the inside out, with the mystical Karamakate as a reluctant tour guide in two time periods.Read More »
IMBD synopsis:
In his twilight years, Silvio Vega, a child of the destitution and violence of Columbia’s countryside, takes a trip with his two grandchildren to force them to kill him instead of dying of old age.Read More »
An adult male, 155 centimeters tall, of dark complexion; presents frontal baldness, regular eyebrows, brown eyes, wide nose, big mouth with thick lips, slight upper lip hair and big ears with free hanging lobes. He shows paralysis in the lower limbs, an open sore in the left gluteus and an old wound from a firearm projectile in the back; he moves in a wheelchair.
Premiered in Director’s Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival.
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From allmovie:
One might consider this violent adaptation of the classical Greek tragedy as Sophocles with a South American twist. Set amidst the rebel wars (representing the Theban plagues) of contemporary Colombia, Mayor Edipo (Oedipus) must mediate a peace deal between conflicting guerrilla groups and the army. It is raining when he leaves. His journey is interrupted when he gets into a shoot out on a lonely bridge. Returning fire, Edipo somehow escapes. As soon as he gets to town he hears that a prominent leader, Layo was brutally slain. No one knows who shot him. Meanwhile a blind seer wanders town making dire prophecies concerning Edipo’s future. It is he who tells the mayor that Layo was murdered by a family member. Edipo’s fate is sealed when he gets involved with the beautiful and much older Yocasta, a woman who last had sex thirty years before with her husband Layo. She got pregnant and bore a son… Tragedy ensues.
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