Two Colombian productions will compete in the official competition, and four others will participate in the Industry section of the Guadalajara International Film Festival.
The 39th edition of the Guadalajara International Film Festival (FICG), scheduled for June 7-15, is approaching. Each year, the event attracts more and more visitors, filmmakers, press, and industry professionals. The organizers have announced the official selection of films competing in different sections, consolidating the Festival as an ideal space for training, education, and creative exchange among professionals, international film critics, and students from Ibero-America. The Festival will award notable prizes for the Best Ibero-American Fiction Film and in categories such as Best First Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography, and Best Acting.
In the Official Competition for Ibero-American Feature Film, Yo vi tres luces negras (I Saw Three Black Lights), produced by Contravía Films in co-production with Malacosa Cine (Mexico), Dublin Films (France), Autentika Films (Germany) and Bárbara Films (Colombia), will compete. Director Santiago Lozano takes the audience on a mystical journey through the Colombian Pacific, telling the story of José de los Santos, a wise older man searching for his last encounter with death. After its world premiere in the Panorama section of the 74th Berlin Film Festival (2024), the film won the Grand Prix Coup De Coeur at the 36th Toulouse Film Festival and was selected for the Official Competition of the 63rd Cartagena de Indias International Film Festival (FICCI).
The Official Competition of the Ibero-American Feature Documentary, recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences of Hollywood, allows the winning documentary to be considered for an Oscar nomination. Carropasajero by Juan Pablo Polanco and César Alejandro Jaimes, produced by Los Niños Films (Colombia) and Pong Berlin (Germany), will participate in this section. The sound of metal creaks as if something is about to break. An old pickup truck adapted to carry passengers crosses the La Guajira desert in Colombia. With the wind come voices that merge among the passengers who travel there. A Wayuu woman returns to her territory, accompanied by her family, after years of exile due to a paramilitary massacre. Carropasajero is a cyclical journey where the time layers of the territory touch and the border between the living and the dead is diluted. How didn't you wake me up when my soul was leaving?.
The Festival's industry programs aim to support different sectors of Ibero-American cinema with six platforms for varying levels of project development, differentiated by their thematic specialties. These include the Co-Production Meeting, Episode 0: Series in Development, Guadalajara Builds, DocuLab, Talents and the Film Market.
DocuLab, which promotes the development of Ibero-American filmmakers and their documentary films in the editing stage, will feature Manita by Andrés Acevedo Zuleta. The film is set in the Colombian jungle, where Doraicy, a fourteen-year-old girl, spends her days taking care of her younger sister Naomi, 3, and helping her sisters Daira, 9, and Zirle, 7, with their schoolwork. Doraicy is about to graduate from school in her hometown of Pogue. Games, hairstyles, and conversations with friends, aunts, and more experienced women warn her of a limited destiny. But Doraicy's deepest desire remains: to leave and continue her studies in the big city. But Doraicy cannot escape her fate, for her future is marked by the arrival of her first great love.
The fiction film Los pájaros (The Birds) and the documentary Los impostores (The Impostors) will participate in the Co-Production Meeting. Over two and a half days of intensive meetings, representatives of feature films in development will connect with international film professionals. These sessions will offer opportunities for producers, buyers, and sellers from around the world to collaborate and form partnerships.
Los pájaros, written and directed by Fabián Hernández (Un varón) and produced by Medio de Contención Producciones, tells the story of Freddy, 18, who, along with other young men, is drafted into the military. As he endures the rigors of military life, his fascination with Zúñiga, 20, grows, and he discovers a kind of seduction in military practice. Rumors of war cause anxiety among the soldiers. Freddy is sent to the jungle, where the Colombian armed conflict intensifies, and under the cold gaze of Zapata 20, Freddy must embody his most warlike version. Horrified by the horrors of combat, Freddy accidentally wounds a comrade and flees in terror. Contact with nature transforms him, but Private Zapata recaptures and subdues him. An unfortunate incident shows Freddy that he is not made for war, and tries to escape, even at the cost of his life.
Los impostores, by David Correa Franco in co-direction with Bestabe Lema, has been supported by the Fondo para el Desarrollo Cinematográfico - FDC (Film Development Fund) in the documentary feature film development category in 2022.
In addition, the series Diez (Ten) by Diana Narváez is participating in Episodio 0, which brings together Ibero-American fiction, animation, or documentary series projects in the early stages of development.
