Profiles: Sofía Oggioni | Proimágenes Colombia

Sofía Oggioni Hatty was born in Cali and studied social communications (journalism) at the Valle University (Colombia). Since 1998, she he has participated in numerous audiovisual productions in the field of ​cinematography and, in some cases, as a filmmaker. She was director of photography for the three films released by Contravía Films to date, Crab Trap (2010), The Sirga (2012), and Los Hongos (The Fungi) (2014).
 
"As a child I was fascinated by light as "matter"... prisms, reflections in the water, magnifying glasses, light seeping through cracks in a window and projecting shapes and movement from outside (like a camera obscura but, at that time I didn’t know the theory, I just knew it was fascinating)."
 
One of her most noteworthy experiences as a filmmaker was the experimental video Acción de Ir hacia adelante, for which she also performed the cinematography. With this video, Oggioni participated in the Ibero-American Public Television Screening (Muestra Iberoamericana de Televisión Pública) organized by the ATEI (2004); was nominated at the Argentina Short Dreams (Sueños Cortos) Festival (2004); and took the Award for Best Experimental Film at the Equinoxio Film and Video Festival. She directed the short film El Cuarto, which earned her numerous awards: in 2004, the Best Fiction Award at the Equinoxio Film and Video Festival; Best Storyline and Best Cinematography at the Third CINECUN Imagen en Movimiento Festival; and the Cesares Award for Best Acting, Best Production, Best Cinematography, and Best Editing. She also participated with El Cuarto in the Corto Circuito Festival, at the King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center at New York University; the Santa Fe de Antioquia Film Festival; the Seventh International Video Screening at the 45th Cartagena International Film Festival (2005); Alucine Canada (2006); and the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival (2006), among others.
 
"One day I came across a shoot in downtown Havana (Cuba) and was impressed by the size and power of the lights; my traveling companion, who had worked as a producer on several films, explained to me how sets worked and told me about the role of each person in the shoot ... it seemed like a fascinating world, but at the same time unattainable (like the beams of light I never managed to catch in the instamatic when I was 11)."
 
Oggioni was co-director and cinematographer of two documentaries produced by Señal Colombia and the School of Social Communication at the Valle University. El Cielo Anticipado (2005) was selected at the Seventh Bogota International Documentary Screening (2005) and the Twelfth Bogota Film Festival (2006). The second, Los Hijos de la Bestia (2005), was given the Casares Award for Best Documentary Cinematography (2006) and participated in the Seventh Bogota International Documentary Screening; the International Festival of New Latin American Cinema in Havana; the Vancouver Latin American Film Festival; and the International Public Television Screening Conference (INPUT) in Taipei, Taiwan (2006).
 
“In my first years at college I was obsessed with still photography and worked in the lab processing 35 mm negative film and guiding students. However, I became involved in advanced students’ documentary and narrative projects, where I gradually opened a space for myself as a camera operator."
 
She was camera assistant (16 and 35 mm) at Congo Films, where she worked on commercials for production companies such as Novo, La Banda, Teleset, and Lupa. She did the same kind of work on the shorts Marina, la Esposa del Pescador by Carlos Hernández and La Cerca by Rubén Mendoza. She was camera operator for the documentary Corte Americano (2005), the short film Asunto de Gallos by Joan Gómez, the feature film Recuérdame by Carlos Fernández de Soto, and the second part of La Sociedad del Semáforo (The Stoplight Society) by Rubén Mendoza.
 
Oggioni has been director of photography and camera operator of the documentaries Silo-ve, un Niño by Santiago Lozano (2004), From the Land to your Table by Carolina Navas (2008), Jacanamijoy, From the Holly Earth to The Great City by Cecilia Posada Durán (2008), Retratos de la Ausencia by Camila Rodríguez (2010), and En el Taller by Ana María Salas (ongoing); of the experimental video Al Vacío 1, 2, 3 by Oscar Ruiz Navia (2005); and of the shorts Flores by Marcela Gómez (2013), Pacto by Pedro Miguel Rozo (2012), Nelsa by Felipe Guerrero (2014), La Niña de la Buseta by Pedro Pío (in post-production), and Sara by Ingrid Pérez (in post-production).
 
In the field of feature films, she was assistant director for the feature film Others by Oscar Campo (2008), and photography assistant for El Rey (2004) by Antonio Dorado and La Historia del Baúl Rosado by Libia Stella Gómez (2005).

As director of photography, she began with the feature film Crab Trap by Oscar Ruíz Navia (2010). She went on to make a name for herself with La Sirga (2012) by William Vega, a project that has earned her important accolades internationally, including the Best Cinematography awards at the 16th Lima Film Festival, the 2013 Riverrun Festival, and from the Colombian Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences. She now continues her work with Los Hongos (The Fungi) by Oscar Ruiz Navia (2014).