Macondo Awards: the best of Colombian cinema

Staff November 18, 2018

265 4 minutes read

On Saturday, November 17, the Macondo Awards were presented, which celebrate the best of Colombian cinema in the last year. Find out here about the winners

If you want to support the Colombian national cinema and do not know how, find out here about the winners of these awards and update yourself with the latest films from our cinema. These awards are granted by the Colombian Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences (ACACC), which celebrate and promote the films of Colombian directors and producers to promote national cinema.

Leer en español: Premios Macondo: lo mejor del cine colombiano

Who are they?

The Colombian Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences was founded in 2009 and has already organized seven versions of the Macondo Awards. According to the description on its website, it is a private non-profit entity, so it is completely foreign to any political or ideological entity, which makes it free and autonomous.

This allows the diversity between the projects and the films that promote because it does not obey any political agenda and accepts any type of production. It has more than 450 members that bring together professionals from the film industry in thirteen specialties: production, directing, interpretation, script, editing, the direction of photography, art direction, original music, costume design, sound design, production management, Makeup, and VFX design.

The ACACC awards, then, the Macondo awards, which "are recognition of the pursuit of artistic, technical and narrative excellence of Colombian cinematography", according to the same ACACC. The nominees and winners are chosen by the members of the association.

Read also: 5 Latin American cinema classics that you should see

The winners

This is the list of winners this year of the Macondo Awards, given at the Ágora Convention Center in Bogotá and celebrating the film productions premiered from July 2017 to June 2018:

Kill Jesus (Matar a Jesús)

This movie won in the categories of Best Film of the Year, Best Director (Laura Mora), Best Supporting Actor (Camilo Escobar), Best Screenplay (Laura Mora and Alonso Torres), Best Sound (Carlos E. Lopera, Gerardo Kalmar, and Guido Berenblum.

Official synopsis: Paula is a 22-year-old girl who witnesses the murder of her father, a very popular political science professor at the public university of Medellín. Seeing that the authorities make no effort to resolve the event and find her father's killer, Paula and her family are forced to act on their own once the case has been filed and suspended by the police. A couple of months after the murder, Paula crosses paths with Jesus, the young man who committed the crime, which will cause him an internal struggle between his morality and the desire to avenge the death of his father.

Amazon (Amazona)

This movie won in the categories of Best Documentary, Best Editing (Gustavo Vasco) and Best Original Music (Camilo Sanabria).

Official synopsis: This is the story of Val and Clare, a mother, a daughter. After the tragic death of her eldest daughter, Val leaves behind her children and her family and goes IGNORE INTO the Colombian jungle. Clare Weiskopf, director of this film, was then 11 years old and could not understand what her mother was looking for. Thirty years later, Clare becomes pregnant and decides to confront her mother to heal the wounds of the past and define motherhood on her own terms. Together they will embark on a journey towards the most intimate part of their relationship, which will lead them to explore the border between responsibility and freedom, guilt and sacrifice. What does it mean to be a good mother?

Tropical Virus (Virus Tropical)

This movie won in the categories of Best Animation and Best Original Song (Adriana García).

Official synopsis: Paola belongs to a traditional Colombian family, or that's what they try to be. His father is a priest, his mother is a "medium" and his sisters are not what the parents expected. Paola is a young Latin American woman who fights for her independence in a difficult context.

Amalia, the secretary (Amalia, la secretaria)

This movie won in the categories of: Best Leading Actress (Marcela Benjumea), Best Leading Actor (Enrique Carriazo) and Best Supporting Actress (Patricia Tamayo).

Official synopsis: Amalia is an efficient secretary who keeps the office environment under control. When a messy technician named Lazaro appears in the office, the balance created meticulously by Amalia breaks down .

Salt (Sal)

He won in the categories of: Best Art Direction (Marcela Gómez), Best Direction of Photography (David Gallego), Best Costumes (Ana María Acosta).

Official synopsis: Heraldo crosses the vast desert on his old motorcycle to reach the high mountains and find the town of his missing father. But the road is thorny and Heraldo falls with his motorcycle to a deep abyss. There two hermits, Solomon and Magdalena, heal him with cactus and salt. But only by appeasing his mind will he be able to return to the route and thus accelerate his motorcycle to advance … or return.

Seven Heads (Siete Cabezas)

Won in the categories of: Best Makeup (Liliana Cabrejo) and Best VFX (Hector Acosta).

Official synopsis: Marcos, a retired park ranger, sees the fragile equilibrium he had achieved in the isolation of a natural park collapsed, when a couple of biologists arrive to investigate a strange animal mortality. When the desire for women becomes uncontrollable and as the mortality grows larger and larger, the seven-headed monster that Marcos tried to control again awakes and the Apocalypse narrated in the Bible begins to come true.