Colombia at the Berlinale
Pantalla Colombia No.: 085febrero 01 - 28 / 2019
Four films, four Colombians at the Talents Campus, and Luis Ospinas thespian turn were Colombias contribution in the sixty-ninth edition of the Berlin International Film FestivalBerlinale. El tamaño de las cosas by Carlos Felipe Montoya received the Generation Kplus Special International Jury Award for Best Short Film.
The Berlinale’s Panorama section held its fortieth edition in 2019. Since its beginnings in 1980, this section has presented films made to inspire and provoke, to challenge audiences’ habits of vision and thought. Two Colombian co-productions participated in Panorama this year, selected by Paz Lázaro, the section’s chief, and Michael Stütz, co-curator. The selection presented 45 films from 38 countries and 34 world premieres. Panorama is one of the festival’s best-loved sections, with its own audience award and the largest jury.
One of the feature films presented is the documentary Lemebel by Joanna Reposi Garibaldi, a co-production between Chile and Colombia that enjoyed its world premiere in Panorama Dokumente. The other film was Monos by Alejandro Landes, which had its European premiere in Berlin after its world premiere at Sundance.
The third Colombian production at the festival, which also arrived after a stint at Sundance, was Lapü by César Alejandro Jaimes and Juan Pablo Polanco, projected in the Forum section for experimental cinema.
The short film El tamaño de las cosas by Carlos Felipe Montoya—who had already taken his first short film Camino de agua to Berlin in 2015—ran in the Generation Kplus section for children and young people. It competed alongside 32 other productions from 22 countries, among them the Netherlands, Brazil, Denmark, Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Nepal, Bhutan, Sweden, United States, Norway, Hong Kong, Canada, India, Japan, and Spain. It received the Special Jury Award for Best Short Film in that section.
Four Colombian were among the 250 audiovisual professionals that participated in Berlinale Talents: Sergio Barón with his project Diálogos de la ceniza, director and producer Augusto Sandino (Suave el aliento), producer Jose Manuel Duque (Los nadie), and Diana Bustamante.
Finally, audiences had the chance to see a special performance by Luis Ospina, starring with Geraldine Chaplin, Udo Kier, Jaime Piña, and Jackie Ludueña in Holy Beasts (La fiera y la fiesta) by Laura Amelia Guzmán and Israel Cárdenas, a co-production between the Dominican Republic, Argentina, and Mexico that had its world premiere in the Berlinale’s Panorama section.