The film, directed by Fabián Hernández and Colombia's entry for the 96th Oscars, premiered in the United States on December 8.
Fabián Hernández's debut film, Un varón (A Male), had its world premiere in the Directors' Fortnight section of the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. It then made the rounds at events like the San Sebastian Film Festival, the Biarritz Latin American Film Festival, the Hamburg Film Festival, the Lima Film Festival (where it won Best Film, Best Actor, Best Cinematography in Fiction, and the Special Prize of the Official Fiction Jury), the Fribourg Film Festival, and the Havana Latin American Film Festival.
The movie, released in Colombia on April 13 with Doc:Co handling distribution, is a collaboration among Colombia, France, the Netherlands, and Germany. Medio de Contención Producciones, led by Manuel Ruiz Montealegre, spearheaded the production, joined by In Vivo Films, Fortuna Films, Black Forest Film, RTVC Play, Ilse Hughan, Christoph Hahmeiser, Josune Hahneiser, Louise Bellicaud, and Claire Charles. Héctor Ulloque also served as an associate producer. The technical team included Sofía Oggioni as director of photography, Santiago Porras handling casting, Isabel Torres managing sound direction, Jean-Guy Veran overseeing sound mixing, and Mike and Fabien Kourtzer creating the original music, among others.
During its development, it was selected for the l'Atelier Cinefondation at the Cannes Film Festival 2020, the Feature LAB at the Torino Film 2019, and the Development Lab of the TyPA Foundation and IMCINE Mexico in 2018. It received support from the FDC for Feature Film Production in 2018; won the Torino Film Lab Co-Production Award in 2019; the Berlinale World Cinema Fund Award and the 2020 Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine Award in 2020; as well as the WIP Latam Postproduction at the San Sebastian Film Festival and the Cinéma du monde Postproduction at the CNC in 2021, among others.
The movie hit theaters in Washington, D.C., New York, and Los Angeles, screening at venues such as the Roxy Theater in San Francisco, the Instituto Cervantes in Los Angeles, and the Cinema Village in New York, among other special events. These were all part of a program organized by Cinema Tropical, Cercamon, and the Colombian Consulate in each city.
Founded in 2001, Cinema Tropical aimed to distribute, program, and champion the biggest Latin American film boom in decades. It's thriving as an innovative organization dedicated to refining foreign film distribution and exhibition strategies in the United States. As a public relations and advertising agency, Cinema Tropical has orchestrated premiere campaigns for several films, including Ixcanul, Chile '76, La casa lobo (The Wolf House), La camarista (The Chambermaid), Rojo (Red), and Nostalgia de la luz (Nostalgia for the Light). It also led Oscar campaigns for Videofilia (Peru, 2016), La mala noche (The Bad Night, Ecuador, 2019), and Los sonámbulos (The Sleepwalkers, Argentina, 2021).
