Profiles: Catalina Arroyave | Proimágenes Colombia

Catalina Arroyave is a social communicator from the Universidad EAFIT in Medellín, Antioquia. After completing her BA, she studied film in Argentina and Cuba, specializing in scriptwriting and direction. Her first short film, El truco (2010), was a coproduction between Argentina and Colombia, in which she addresses the world of lost objects and the loss of innocence. This short was selected in the New Creators category of the fifty-first Cartagena de Indias International Film Festival– FICCI.

In 2010, she co-founded Raro Colectivo Audiovisual, a film project management house based in Medellín, that brings together seven professionals in different audiovisual areas. The project has three main lines of work: the creation of artistic projects (long and short films); the provision of services to third parties (documentaries, promotional videos, musical videos, amongst others); and the training of audiences with their quarterly showing of large scope shorts, as well as creative workshops for diverse audiences.

Her full length debut feature Los días de la ballena received two Film Development Fund – FDC – script prizes and had its first world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival, where it received a Special Mention in the Cherrypickers First Female Feature Award. The film tells the story of Cristina and Simón, two graffiti artists and painter friends who paint the city where they live: Medellín. Their restless spirit leads them to challenge a criminal gang when they decide to cover with a mural a threat written on a wall. The creation process began in 2014 and ended in 2018, a period which, in addition to implying lessons learnt, allowed Arroyave to investigate and meet with urban artists, interview leaders from different parts of the city, and approach the lives of people with similar experiences to that of the film.

“I was born and raised in Medellín, a conservative city that has dealt for decades with a history of violence that has been difficult to resolve. Whilst I became a woman in this context my spirit collided with different rigid structures: my family, a Catholic school, a private university, the mafia culture that governed my city and the stereotypes of paisa women. This film is born from this permanent collision, and also from the nostalgia for the people who helped me grow. Los Días de la Ballena speaks about this time in which you feel lost, but powerful.”

August 2019.