Ver Cine Colombiano: Noticias | Proimágenes Colombia

Established in 1979, the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival is organized by the Clermont-Ferrand Film Society and is held annually. France's second-largest film festival after Cannes aims to bring together industry professionals, such as filmmakers, producers, distributors, exhibitors, students, and the general public, around short film productions. In its 45th edition this year, two Colombian short films participated in the Official Selection, three short films in the Short Film Market Picks, and a delegation from Proimágenes Colombia attended market screenings.
 
Andrés Jiménez Quintero's Golem was featured in the International Competition. The film follows 16-year-old Emilio, a young man living in a humid region of Colombia with no choice but to join a paramilitary group due to his restlessness and lack of opportunities. The Colombian-French co-production Todo incluido (All Inclusive) by Duván Duque Vargas was showcased in the National Competition. The film portrays Fer, an eleven-year-old boy traveling with his father and stepmother to a rural resort a few hours' drive from the outskirts of Bogotá. Although Fer's father is there for business, he makes a point of spending quality time with his family, which has been missing from their lives for too long.
 
Six short films were showcased as part of the Market Screenings and featured in the Catalogue of Colombian Short Films Refresh-Vol. 4, a program initiated by the International Promotion Department of Proimágenes Colombia, supported by the Film Development Fund - FDC. The program aims to guide a selected number of Colombian short films in their distribution process and increase their national and international circulation.
 
Among the films showcased, Cristina Sánchez Salamanca's Bebé (Baby), produced by Natalia Barriga and Duván Duque, portrays Nina, who must face her insecurities and deteriorating relationship with her father during her stepsister's birthday. This production received the 2020 Grant for creating short fiction films for filmmakers with a trajectory from the Instituto Distrital de las Artes - Idartes (Bogotá's Arts Institute).
 
Paloquemao by Jeferson Cardoza Herrera, produced by Melisa Zapata Montoya, received the 2020 Creation Grant for new filmmakers from Idartes and was also part of the 12th edition of Euro Connection of the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Market 2020 and the BFM Incubator of Bogoshorts Film Market 2019. The short film depicts the chaos that ensues when the largest blood trafficking network in Bogota is busted, and the tranquility of the Paloquemao Market Square is threatened by thirsty vampires lurking in its dark corridors.
 
Juan David Mejía Vásquez's short film, Negro el mar, produced by Jair Pérez Guerra, tells the story of Arnaldo, who carries music and a bohemian lifestyle in his blood. Struggling to survive in an indifferent community, Arnaldo finds himself caught between the need to earn money for his daughter, who does not live with him, and his desire to seek new horizons. He leaves everything behind and crosses the sea that separates him from his new life. This short film was a beneficiary of the FDC and a recipient of the Medellín Film Commission and Cultura Medellín incentives.
 
Vienen las grietas (Here come the cracks), directed and produced by Daniel Mateo Vallejo, was awarded an INI Short Film Production grant from the Ministry of Culture. The film follows Keisi, who wakes up one morning with an obsession to escape into the thicket of nature that has been haunting her lately; a photograph as fantasy and the art gallery in which it is exhibited as a nightmare.
 
Estefanía Piñeres' Color-ido (Color gone), produced by Alejandro Zapata, was the winner of the FDC in the Animation Short Filmmaking 2020 category. The film portrays a world in black and white, divided into two types of beings, "Us" and "The Others." Violeta, a restless girl, inadvertently invokes a mysterious being who takes her on an exciting journey where she meets Rojo, an "Other." Together, Rojo and Violeta discover that between black and white hides a magical secret: all the colors.
 
Se alquilan lavadoras (Washing machines for rent) by Jeferson Romero Ruíz, produced by Carolina Dorado Lozano, is a documentary that follows the lives of four families living in Potosí, a neighborhood on the outskirts of Bogotá. There, families come together around a shared ritual: cleaning their clothes. This production was a beneficiary of the FDC 2019 documentary short filmmaking incentive.
 
Lastly, Todas mis cicatrices se desvanecen en el viento (All my scars fade in the wind) by Angélica Restrepo and Carlos Velandia, portrays a woman who, amidst intrusive and sought-after memories, heeds a disturbing call from the depths of her being. A cryptic cry for help, which becomes more and more intelligible, guides her to the original wound, to her inner child, to whom she will give comfort and finally become her own protector.
 
Short Film Market Picks featured three colombian films: ¿Qué hay detrás de la lechuza muerta? (What's Behind the Dead Owl?) by Samuel Moreno Alvarez, Aribada by Natalia Escobar and Simon(è) Jaikiriuma Paetau, and Todas mis cicatrices se desvanecen en el tiempo (All my scars fade in time). In ¿Qué hay detrás de la lechuza muerta?, the director and his family find themselves in a strange and dark world where superstition, prayer, and indigenous rituals appear to be the only things that can save them from the curse of a country that has been plagued by violence for years. Aribada tells the story of a resurrected monster that encounters the aesthetic and spiritual universe of Las Traviesas, a group of transgender Embera indigenous women, where the magical, the dreamlike, and the performative coexist and where documentary and fiction merge in a transcultural narrative.
 
Finally, the Bogoshorts Platform, which organizes the Bogotá Short Film Festival (Festival de Cortos de Bogotá) and distributes Latin American short films through the Bogoshorts Film Agency, presented various activities and promoted its Line Up 2023. The festival's director and founder, Jaime E. Manrique, and Miguel Morales, also part of the festival's management team, were in attendance. Thanks to the efforts of Bogoshorts and with the support of the French Embassy in Colombia, Los subtítulos (Subtitles), the winning production of the BFM Incubator, the Ibero-American component of the Bogoshorts Film Market, participated in Euro Connection, the Clermont Ferrand Short Film Market space dedicated to international co-production.