Ciro Guerra, one of the directors who changed the image of Colombian cinema
Listen this article
Colombian cinema has changed in recent years in terms of production, themes, and so on. This is one of the directors that made it possible
Leer en español: Ciro Guerra, uno de los directores que cambió la imagen del cine colombiano
Three years ago Colombia and the world were realizing that Colombian cinema was changing. For the first time in history, a cinematographic work from this country was nominated at the Oscar's Academy Awards. Ciro Guerra, the Colombian behind El abrazo de la serpiente, is the filmmaker who to this day has given what to speak in the national and international press for leaving the name of Colombian and Latin American cinema in the mouth of the media and critics international
Read also: These three Colombian artists have impacted the world (2nd part)
Born 38 years ago in Río de Oro municipality of César department, Ciro Guerra studied film and television at the National University of Colombia. After directing some short films and winning awards with them, he directed what was his first great success in 2004 The Shadow of the Wayfarer, a film with which he participated in festivals such as Guadalajara, Hamburg, Seoul, among others and was presented outside of competition in events of great importance such as the Festival de Cannes, Bangkok, Prague, Los Angeles, among others. The work won ten international awards and four nationally.
In 2009, Los Viajes del Viento premiered a film that Guerra also directed and which won two national prizes and four international prizes. It was filmed in more than eighty locations of César, Magdalena, Atlántico, Sucre, and La Guajira. Behind the film is a great investigative tour in terms of history, tradition, and roots that give rise to the music of this region and how this is an expression of the relationship that man has with nature, as stated by the director in an interview with ZoonInTV. In this film, he shows us the vital role that landscape has in his film productions.
El Abrazo de la Serpiente was premiered in 2015, a film that was nominated for the Oscar Award in the Best Film category in non-English language for the beginning of 2016. It was the first time that a Colombian film was nominated for an Academy Award. This showed the national and international public that the productions in the country should not only address issues such as poverty, violence or drug trafficking as they had been doing for many years to succeed, participate in festivals and be nominated for important statuettes. During 2014 and 2015, Colombian films such as Gente de Bien, La Tierra y La Sombra, Alias María, Siempreviva among others, premiered. It was an excellent season for Colombian cinema.
In 2018 Pájaros de Verano was premiered, in which Cristina Gallego Guerra's wife participated as director and he as co-director. The film was the beneficiary of the fund for film development in 2016 and in December of last year the news that it was nominated in the nine films pre-selected for the Best Foreign Language Film Award was received, a nomination that sadly did not come. Ciro Guerra has shown that dreaming of an Oscar Award is not impossible and that Colombian cinema can have beautiful landscapes of our country, with themes that go beyond the narco-cinematic stereotype that has stigmatized Colombians for so many years.
LatinAmerican Post | Ana María Aray Mariño
Translated from "Ciro Guerra, uno de los directores que cambió la imagen del cine colombiano"
