Colombia On Film Returns To The Roxie Theater

Presented by CiNEOLA, the third annual COLOMBIA ON FILM series returns to the Roxie Theater on November 15 and 16. The series invites audiences to immerse themselves in stories portraying the collective identity and history of Colombia. Co-presented by RoxCine and supported by local presenting partners San Francisco Film Preserve, Watsonville Film Festival, and Frameline.

‘Timeliness’. best describes the arrival of the third annual Colombia On Film series, which returns to the Roxie Theater on November 15 & 16, 2025. News reports tell of Venezuelan boats and Colombian fishermen being deliberately and illegally blown up by U.S. forces in international waters. (Speculating about how such acts open the door to hostile nations feeling entitled to shoot down U.S. civilian aircraft doesn’t seem to have been done by the Orange Dictator’s gang.)

The theme of this year’s series of Colombian films, “resistance in motion,” feels like an inspiring call to arms for a political moment better represented by Zohran Mamdani than Chuck Schumer and the Caving Eight.

CiNEOLA and RoxCine, co-presenters of this film series, offer three programs this year. The programs’ subjects cover anti-imperialism, labor and exploitation, and trans rights.

Kicking things off this year is “Garras de Oro (The Dawn Of Justice) (1:00 PM on November 15, 2025).” P.P. Jambrina’s long-believed lost 1926 silent movie holds the honor of being world cinema’s first explicitly anti-imperialist film. The story follows what happens after a newspaper publishes an editorial declaring U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt unfit for re-election. The reason: his involvement in the separation of Panama violated an international treaty with Colombia. Live musical accompaniment will be provided by Nobozos Band, who will be performing an original score. After the screening, there will be a panel discussion on the film’s historical significance and its preservation. The panelists are Kathy Rose O’Regan (San Francisco Film Preservation), Alex Feliciano Mejia (Ethnographic scholar of race and media at SFSU), and Hector Hoyos (Professor Of Iberian and Latin-American Cultures, Stanford University).

The Dawn Of Justice

Next up is a program of two short films screening at 3:00 PM that same day. The first short documentary is “Cuando Ellas Se Fueron Solo Quedo Un Pequeno Ruido En La Montana (“When They Left, All That Remained Was A Small Noise In The Mountains).” Laura Davila Argoty’s short film takes viewers to Colombia’s Andes de Narino. Here lie the ruins of what used to be the prosperous textile factory known as El Contadero. Principal subject Estela worked in the factory from age 16 until El Contadero’s closure. Her memories serve as the viewer’s guide to the factory’s early years as well as life with her co-workers. This 87-year-old woman still weaves, except she uses the pre-Columbian loom known as the guanga.

After that comes the documentary “Amores, Mujeres y Flores (“Loves, Women, and Flowers”),” which gives a well-deserved stink eye to Colombia’s 1980s floricultural industry. To the outside world, Colombia’s internationally acclaimed industry seduced with its images of floral abundance. Yet as Marta Rodriguez and Jorge Silva’s film shows, behind those bucolic images was an industry that depended on pesticide overuse and terrible working conditions for its mostly female workforce.

Wrapping the festival up is Monica Taboada-Tapia’s drama “Alma Del Desierto (Soul of the Desert) (12:30 PM on November 16, 2025).” Georgina is an elderly transgender Wagyu woman who wants to change her life before time runs out for her. So she decides to see her estranged siblings. But there are barriers, both personal (e.g. open emotional wounds) and practical (e.g. the siblings don’t speak Spanish) to her quest.

Will these films stir up a fire in the viewer to (among other things) resist fascism in America? We can but hope.