Profiles: Ricardo Restrepo | Proimágenes Colombia

Ricardo Restrepo Hernández was one of the most esteemed and renowned documentary filmmakers, directors of photography, and producers in Colombia. He cofounded the Colombian Corporation of Documentary Filmmakers (Alados Colombia), was the Colombian correspondent for Radio France Internationale, a delegate of the International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes (FIPA) in Biarritz, France, and for many years directed the Bogota International Documentary Festival (MIDBO). He represented Alados at Sunny Side Of The Doc documentary market where Colombia participated with multiple films.
 
Born in Bogotá in 1962, he passed away on September 2, 2017. He studied at the Louis Pasteur French School in Bogotá from 1968 to 1980. After receiving his degree in communications from the faculty of social communication at the Universidad Externado de Colombia for studies conducted between 1980 and 1984, he travelled to the United States on a Fulbright scholarship in 1989 to complete a masters in cinematography.
 
In 1997 the French government granted him a scholarship too. He moved to Paris to take a masters in documentary filmmaking and a course on new technologies at Cifan in 1999. The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs invited him to a workshop-seminar on international sales for documentaries carried out in Quito, Ecuador. The following year, the Ibermedia program awarded him a fellowship to undertake an internship in new technologies in Montreal, Canada.
 
In 2017, A recomponer won the DOCTV Latin America award for Colombia. This project told the story of two guerrillas who leave war behind to pursue music. In 2014, he directed the short film Cesó la horrible noche, a documentary about the Bogotazo that was forged from the footage captured by his grandfather Roberto Restrepo into a film that refreshes old memories of this historical event from the perspective of a doctor from Bogotá whose hobby was to take pictures on his Bolex 16mm. Pathos Audiovisual produced the film. Restrepo worked on two more of their films, Un asunto de tierras (2015) and Don Ca (2013), as director of photography, both directed by Patricia Ayala. Among his recent work is also the cinematography on Nueva Venecia by Emiliano Mazza.
 
He received national awards for María: Toma dos, the Victor Nieto Jr. Award for the Best Colombian Short Film at the 8^th International Film Festival in Bogotá in 1991 and the Hernando Salcedo Jr. Award for Best National Production by Focine in 1992. Cronoposte earned him the National Culture Scholarship granted by the Colombian Ministry of Culture in 2001 and En el corazón de la medusa received a mention by the Ministry of Culture’s film competition in 2001 and 2002.
 
Restrepo was part of the Tierra de agua project for ITVS International (United States) and RTVC (Colombia); Tierra a la vista for Petrobrás (Brazil) and Fundación Natibo (Colombia); director of photography on Cities of Speed for NHK (Japan), Sundance Chanel (United States), and Cosmo Doc (Denmark); and the feature film Soul searchers for TamJazz Productions (United States). Assistant director, field producer in Colombia, and second camera for the documentary The Coca-Cola Case for the National Film Board and Argus Films (Canada). Field producer in Colombia and second camera on the documentary The reckoning for Skylight Pictures (United States), among others.
 
As director of photography, he worked in various formats and genres from television to cinema and from commercials to documentaries (1981-2009). On international television he worked for ORF (Austria); ZDF (Germany); Canal+ (Spain); France 5 - Uno Productions and TV5 (France); CBC Radio Canada and Multi-Monde (Canada). He participated in productions in Bolivia, Brazil, China, Ecuador, United States, France, India, Panama, Peru, Dominican Republic, Tibet, Soviet Union, and Venezuela.
 
As a maker of documentaries, reportages, and institutional and commercial segments, he worked for public and private institutions: UNDP, Unesco-Cerlalc, Corporación Andina de Fomento, Colombian Ministry of Culture, Colombian Ministry of Health, District Secretariat of Health, District Institute of Culture and Tourism, Administrative Environmental Department, Institute of Social Security, National Planning Department, Banco de la República, Museo del Oro, Museo de Arte Colonial, Museo Santa Clara, Comisión Nacional de Regalías, Las Gaviotas Center, Alpina, Universidad del Rosario, Hotel Santa Clara, IBM, Varta, Visa, Merck, and Sony Music, among others.
 
He also worked in video art where he held the distinction of participating in the first Colombian Video Art Showcase by the Arter Foundation in Bogotá, having a solo show at the Medellín Museum of Modern Art, and being invited to the first and third Festival of French-Latin American Video Art in Santiago, Buenos Aires, Paris, and Bogotá, as well as in Scars, Pleasure and Sacrifice and Colectiva Colombia-Argentina de Video in New York. His video art films Colombia 5 - Argentina 0 (1985) and Momento (1980) were selected by the curator of the American Federation of Arts (New York, United States, 1995).
 
As a result of his long career and expertise, Ricardo Restrepo was a visiting professor from 1997 to 2008 at various universities throughout the country: Universidad de Los Andes, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Higher Academy of Arts in Bogotá, and Universidad Francisco de Paula Santander. In addition, he taught classes in the film workshops Imagining Our Image (Imaginando nuestra imagen) given by the Ministry of Culture. He was a guest lecturer at a UNAM (Montreal, Canada, 2000); New York University (United States, 2001); Universidad Libre de Colombia (Bogotá, 2001); Universidad de Manizales (Colombia, 2001); RIDM (Montreal, Canada, 2007); and a jury member at DokFest (Munich, Germany, 2008).
 
Last updated: September, 2017