Nicolás Rincón Gille's film, produced by Caravan Pass (France) and Medio de Contención Producciones (Colombia), was the only Latin American film to compete in the Official Selection of the fourteenth Rome Film Festival, which took place October 17-27
Valley of Souls (Tantas almas), starring José Arley de Jesús Carvallido Lobo, is a co-production between Colombia, Belgium, Brazil, and France. Set in Colombia in 2002, on the banks of the Magdalena River, it tells the story of José, a fisherman looking in the river for his dead children, assassinated by paramilitaries. José begins a journey in solitude to recover their bodies and give them a decent burial, going to any length to prevent their souls from being trapped in this world. In his canoe, journeying the river, José will discover the magic of a broken country.
Nicolás Rincón Gille, witness of what went unsaid in the Colombian armed conflict, explores with Valley of Souls one more case of arbitrary violence in an intimate, personal way, and creates, from that story, a film that turns the silence of a river into a mythical act of commemoration. "Valley of Souls is a realistic film about a magical belief.” The film arrived in Rome immediate after screening at the Busan International Film Festival (BIFF), which took place October 3-12.
Valley of Souls competed for the Audience Award as part of the Official Selection of the fourteenth Rome Film Festival, along with premiered productions such as Martin Scorsese's The Irishman, Tom Harper's The Aeronauts, Hustlers (Wall Street Scammers) with Jennifer Lopez, a film adaptation of Downtown Abbey, and Ron Howard's documentary about the mythical tenor Luciano Pavarotti, among other productions. The Rome Film Fest, which has been held annually during the European autumn since 2006, celebrates the best of international cinema, including new currents in film and the new wave of Italian cinema. It holds tributes to the most important figures in the landscape of cinema. It also grants the Audience Award, the most important prize offered by this film festival, which has gone to titles such as Borg McEnroe by Danish director Janus Metz Pedersen (2017) and Il vizio della speranza by Italian director Edoardo De Angelis (2018).
In its development stage, Valley of Souls won the scriptwriting open call by Colombian Film Fund (FDC) in 2013 and a narrative film production grant from the same fund in 2016. It participated in the Coproduction Forum of the San Sebastián Festival in 2015. Also in 2016, Nicolás Rincón Gille was selected with the film to participate in the L'Atelier de la Cinéfondation at the sixty-ninth Cannes Film Festival, a workshop that since its creation in 2005 has supported and stimulated the new generation of filmmakers, enriching the project production process by completing funding. Valley of Souls and La cordillera by Santiago Mitre were the only Latin American projects selected in that edition.
Nicolás Rincón Gille directed the documentary Los abrazos del río (2010) through which he had already approached the Magdalena River cinematographically, and with which he won the Montgolfière d'or award at the Festival des 3 Continents in Nantes and the Hors frontières award at Clermont-Ferrand. He is the director of the documentaries En lo escondido (2007) and Noche herida (2017), winner of an India Catalina for Best Film in the Official Colombian Film Competition of the Cartagena Film Festival (FICCI) in 2016 and the Special Jury Mention at Cinéma du Réel in 2015. Rincón Gille also made the documentary short Besos fríos (2015). Valley of Souls is his first fiction feature film.
