Plan Colombia: Cashing In on the Drug War Failure

Colombia in My Arms

November 2022 •Finnish

After 52 years of armed conflict the FARC guerrillas are about to hand over their arms in exchange for political participation and social inclusion of the poor. Ernesto is one of them. The much celebrated Colombian peace agreement throws Ernesto and the polarised society around him into chaos in which everyone is afraid of the future and their own survival.

Ciro and Me

January 2018 •Spanish

Ciro Galindo was born on August 29th, 1952 in Colombia. Wherever he's gone, war has found him. After twenty years of friendship, I understood Ciro 's life sums up Colombia's history. As so many Colombians he is a survivor, who has run away from war for more than sixty years, and now dreams of living in peace. "Ciro and Me" is a journey to memory, seeking to give sorrow words; a journey, similar to that of Colombia in times of peace, in search to recover its dignity.

Mama Goema: The Cape Town Beat in Five Movements

June 2011 •English

If you take a pinch of Khoi-San lament, a dash of Malay spice, a bold measure of European orchestral, a splash of Xhosa spiritual, a clash of marching bands, a riff of rock, the pizzazz of the Klopse, some driving primal beat, and a lot of humour and musical virtuosity, what do you get? Goema Goema Goema! Weaving together the ancient, the traditional, and the classical into the contemporary universal sound of Cape Town, Mac MacKenzie, musical mastermind and founder of The Genuines and The Goema Captains of Cape Town, puts together the final touches to the culmination of his life’s work: Goema in Five Movements. Musicians and musical commentators Hilton Schilder, Neo Muyanga, Iain Harris and Graham Arendse, and new kids on the block, Kyle Shepherd and Shane Cooper, add a contemporary context to Goema, while the orchestra rehearses for its premiere performance at the SABC studios.

Tomorrow's Power

March 2017 •English

Tomorrow’s Power is a feature length documentary that showcases three communities around the world and their responses to economic and environmental emergencies they are facing. In the war-torn, oil-rich Arauca province in Colombia, communities have been building a peace process from the bottom up. In Germany activists are pushing the country to fully divest from fossil-fuel extraction and complete its transition to renewable energy. In Gaza health practitioners are harnessing solar power to battle daily life-threatening energy blackouts in hospitals.

Foreign Wars

June 2016 •Spanish

From the land of narco-violence to the land of displaced persons. The documentary Guerras Ajenas ('Wars of Others') explores the consequences of the war on drugs in Colombia, and one of its main tools: aerial spraying.

La Buena Vida - The Good Life

January 2015 •German

The village of Tamaquito lies deep in the forests of Colombia. Here, nature provides the people with everything they need. But the Wayúu community's way of life is being destroyed by the vast and rapidly growing El Cerrejón coal mine. Determined to save his community from forced resettlement, the leader Jairo Fuentes negotiates with the mine's operators, which soon becomes a fight to survive.

The Accordion’s Voyage

March 2013 •Spanish

'The Accordion's Journey' narrates the story of three Colombian musicians. Year after year they participate in the world's largest competitive accordion festival, held in Valledupar, Colombia. But they never win. One day a letter arrives, inviting them to play alongside the legendary Hohner Accordion Orchestra in Trossingen, Germany, the birthplace of the 'Corona', Colombia's most popular accordion. It's the first time abroad for our three heroes and they discover a very different culture, a first encounter with snow and ice and make new friends. But will their adventure help them in winning the accordion festival back in Valledupar?

A Paper Tiger

April 2008 •Spanish

The life of Pedro Manrique Figueroa, a pioneer of collage in Colombia, is both incomplete and contradictory. Taking his life and work as a pretext, this mockumentary takes the viewer on a journey through history from the year 1934 up until 1981, when the artist mysteriously disappeared from view.

Suspension

November 2019 •Spanish

In the depths of the Colombian jungle, the skeleton of an immense abandoned cement bridge is tucked away. It has turned into a delusional tourist attraction.

The Birders

February 2019 •Spanish

The film highlights legendary Colombian birdwatching guide Diego Calderon-Franco and National Geographic photographer/videographer Keith Ladzinski as they travel through Columbia, a nation that boasts one of the most diverse populations of birds in the world, to capture footage of rare and unique birds, some of which have never been filmed before.

Plains: Testimony of an Ethnocide

June 1971 •English

A documentary on the massacre of Planas in the Colombian east plains in 1970. An Indigenous community formed a cooperative to defend their rights from settlers and colonists, but the government organized a military operation to protect the latter and foreign companies.

Los Andes Symphony Orchestra

February 2020 •Spanish

The North of Cauca is the region of Colombia most affected by the internal armed conflict since 1940. There is an orchestra of ancestral music composed of young indigenous people of the Nasa ethnic group who, with their instruments, their voice and their poetry, remember Maryi Vanessa Coicue, Sebastian Ul and Ingrid Guejia, three of the hundreds of indigenous children who have died because of this eternal and useless war between leftist guerrillas, armed groups of the extreme right, drug traffickers and the Colombian State.

Walkers of time

March 2017 •Spanish

María is an Amorúa girl; an indigenous group that traveled the savannas of Orinoquía as nomads. She lives with her grandmother Matilde, her sister diana and her cousins in Puerto Carreño, in the Colombia-Venezuela border. The amorúa are considered wild and are not literate. Matilde wants her granddaughters to learn to write and read to live better in this town of "rational whites" as they call us. The director follows María's life for 8 years from her childhood to her adolescence and invites her to travel the places her grandma did as a nomad.

Our Film

June 1993 •Spanish

Faced with his imminent death from AIDS, Colombian artist Lorenzo Jaramillo looks back on his life and work through the five senses.

Lo Mejor de Jaime Garzón

November 2006 •Spanish

A Matter of Land

March 2015 •Spanish

A Matter of Land recounts the first year of application of Colombian's Land Restitution Act from the perspective of a community who decide to engage with the process. The film explores the tensions that arise when such communities come face to face with the complex institutions responsible for enforcing the law. The result of these tensions is a narrative worthy of Kafka, in which a doorway to justice is opened for the sole purpose of demonstrating that no one can pass through it.

Those Waiting in the Dark

August 2007 •Spanish

In the darkness of a long night, the Colombian country shows another face. An invisible world takes the place of the other one. So one better stays at home and open his ears: half-human and half-beast, something is wandering in the dark. Only some people are able to face it. During her whole life, Carmen was one of them...

It All Started at the End

September 2015 •Spanish

An intimate portrait of the pioneering artistic collective Grupo de Cali, whose work is now considered a fundamental part of Colombia’s film history.

Mas alla del no futuro

December 2008 •Spanish

80s-90's Medellin-Colombia-Punk Documentary.

Resistencia En La Línea Negra

June 2011 •Spanish