Colombia On Film & Film Maker Q&A at Roxie Theater

When’s the last time you saw a film from Colombia?

For those who answered “never” (raise hand), San Francisco’s prime art film showcase, the Roxie Theater, is ready to give you an introduction.  Running from November 2-3, 2024, the Roxie Theater in collaboration with CiNEOLA presents the fifth annual Colombia On Film series.  Co-presenters for this series are Rox Cine and the Colombian Consulate of San Francisco. 

The theme of this year’s series is “Habla El Territorio (The Territory Speaks).” 

This series consists of two feature films and a shorts program.

Pablo Alvarez-Mesa’s “La Laguna Del Soldado (The Soldier’s Lagoon)” (1:15 PM on November 2, 2024) takes viewers back to the time of Simon Bolivar’s Colombian liberation campaign.  Part of that campaign involved the episode known as the Crossing of the Andes, where the liberation army made its way across the Eastern Andes’ plateaus by taking a route through the Paramo de Pisba.  But that crossing was not without cost: a hundred soldiers died of cold and hunger.  Their corpses were found in a lagoon converted into a mass grave, and the spot is now marked with a commemorative stone.  But this is not a film recounting just human history.  In retracing Bolivar’s journey, this experimental film also wants the viewer to re-examine the historical and environmental repercussions of Bolivar’s campaign on Colombia’s present. 

Emile Quevedo Diaz’ “Nosotras (We, The Women)” (12:30 PM on November 3, 2024) is a more personal documentary.  The instigating event is a terminal illness affecting the filmmaker’s grandmother Sixta.  Because the old woman lives in a rural Colombian village, younger generations of family women arrive in the village to care for her.  In a way, this is a surprise.  Sixta never expressed love to her daughters.  But then, the old woman herself had never been shown love when she was growing up.  Slowly, her caretakers and relatives begin opening up with their own secret stories.  While there’s joy in the bonds between women, there’s also a side eye given to traditional gender roles, sexism, domestic violence, and suffocating religious belief.

The “Shorts: Habla El Territorio” program (2:45 PM on November 3, 2024) brings together a quartet of short films.  “Petricor” from filmmaker Juan Jose Arias Gil is a personal documentary imagining thoughts and conversations that Gil wishes he had with his father regarding their relationship and his gender identity.  What seems clear is that Gil’s father may have been overprotective.  For example, after being diagnosed with asthma at age 5, the boy would not be allowed outside when it rained.  The father felt Gil would somehow be injured by the smell of petricor.

What does a graveyard for birds have to do with the woman who pioneered Colombian pornographic cinema?  Juliana Zuluaga Montoya’s “La Noche Del Minotauro (The Night Of The Minotaur)” answers that question by using the story of Luz Emilia Garcia and a generous helping of archival material.  Pieces of that answer include a small village surrounded by wilderness, a lighthouse among the mountaintops, and a debauched celebration known as the Night of the Minotaur.

The experimental documentary “Avalancha (Landslide)” from director Daniel Cortes considers Colombia’s history of oppressive violence and public resistance.  Using archival footage of funeral processions and protest marches, Cortes’ dialogue-free film challenges viewers to consider whether these cyclic political disasters should only be considered a form of regression.

The final short in the program, the CiNEOLA-produced “Junior Tu Papa” is ironically making its West Coast premiere.  Ironic is the right word, as director Daniel Diaz and the rest of the team behind this film happen to hail from San Francisco.  A love letter to both futbol and the Caribbean region of Colombia, the film centers on the 1993 futbol championship final between Junior De Barranquilla and America De Cali.  Through conversations with his father and his two uncles, the filmmaker sifts through fading memories to recall that decades-old match.   There’s pride in the remembrance, as Colombia’s national team at the time was one of the world’s best.  But that mass obsession over Colombia’s team distracted the country’s citizens from acknowledging the relentless violence that was unfortunately part of Colombian life at the time.     

Several of the filmmakers in this series will have post-film Q&A sessions.  Alvarez-Mesa will be doing a virtual Q&A live from Bogota.  Diaz and the “Junior Tu Papa” team will appear in person at the Roxie for their Q&As.

Whether you want to sample filmmaking creativity from a country whose cinema you hadn’t tried before or want to get a stamp for your Roxie Member passport, why not stop by this weekend and try out one of CiNEOLA’s offerings? 

CiNEOLA’s annual “Colombia on film” documentary series
Roxie Theater
Bay Area premieres and filmmaker Q&As on November 2nd & 3rd.
Tickets and showtimes: roxie.com