The new film by Alejandro Landes took the Special Jury Award for Originality in the World Cinema Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival. Lapü by Juan Pablo Polanco and César Alejandro James and Birds of Passage by Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra rounded out the Colombian fare at the festival.
The Sundance Film Festival is the most important showcase of independent films in the United States. The jury for the World Cinema Dramatic Competition, made up of Charles Gillibert, Jane Campion, Ciro Guerra, and Maite Alberdi, granted the Special Jury Award to Monos by Alejandro Landes.
At the awards ceremony, Landes expressed his thanks to the team that made the film possible. “To my co-writer and great friend Alexis dos Santos; to producers Fernando Epstein, Santi Zapata, and Cristina Landes; but above all to the boys who acted in this beautiful film, whose spirit is registered on the screen. You are beautiful people, and you showed us that there is no conflict in the world that is foreign to us.
The film tells the tale of eight armed boys who guard a hostage and a kidnapped dairy coy on a distant mountain. Monos is Landes’ third film, after Cocalero, which also premiered at Sundance in 2007, and Porfirio, which premiered at the Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes in 2001. Monos, shot entirely in Colombia, was screened six times at Sundance where it was one of the festival’s favorites.
“To premiere and show Monos at Sundance has been unforgettable. The welcome we received from audiences and critics couldn’t have been better. We are very grateful and moved to have had the opportunity to show the world this film at such an iconic festival,” said Santiago Zapata, one of the film’s producers.
Monos was made with the support of Caracol Televisión, Dago García Producciones, Cine Colombia, and Dynamo. It is a co-production between Campo Cine (Argentina), Lemming Film (Holland), Pandora Film Produktion (Germany), Mutante Cine (Uruguay), Snowglobe Film (Denmark), Film i Väst (Sweden), Bord Cadre Films (Switzerland), and Counter Narrative Films (United States).
The film secured distribution in the United States at the festival, having been acquired by Neon.
The festival also featured the Colombian film Lapü, a production of Los Niños Films that ran in the World Cinema Documentary section with eleven other films from the bravest and most extraordinary filmmakers working today. The Spotlight section that pays tribute to well-received films from around the world included Birds of Passage, the recent film by Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra.
