Profiles: Carlos César Arbeláez | Proimágenes Colombia

Carlos Cesar Arbelaez was born in June 1967 in Medellin. Screenwriter and director of several short films and numerous TV documentaries. Los colores de la montaña (The Colors of the Mountain), which premiered in Colombia on March 11, 2011, is his first feature-length fiction film. The film has earned major awards on the international festival circuit including the Kutxa-New Directors Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival – the first time a Colombian film has received this award.
 
He graduated high school from the Liceo Antioqueño in the city of Medellin and holds a degree in Communications from the Universidad de Antioquia. His professional training includes a screenwriting workshop at the International Film School in San Antonio de Los Baños, Cuba (1996) and an internship from the Colombian and Argentine Ministries of Culture (2002) in which he studied screenwriting, playwriting and other film-related subjects at Argentina’s Escuela Nacional de Experimentación y Realización Cinematográfica (ENERC). Since 1996, Arbelaez has taught a variety of film courses in major universities in his home town of Medellin.
 
Arbelaez has written and directed more than a dozen TV documentaries including The End (1992), Cada quien tiene su arte (1992) and Las sevillanas de Colombia (1994) for the series “Cultura urbana”; Andrés Fernando Ríos: Ocultar el silencio (1995), Ellos las prefieren rubias (1996) and La noche de Oporto (1998) for the series “Muchachos a lo Bien”, winner of Best Documentary Series at the Cartagena Film Festival in 1997; Cómo llegar al Cielo (1998) for the series “Recorridos”; El cine en casa (1999); Casa de mujeres (2000) for the series “Medellín actas del 2000”; and Negro profundo: Historias de mineros (2001), which was selected for the Latin American Film Festival in Toulouse, France in 2002 and won honorable mention at the Bogotá Film Festival.
 
His first short fiction film La edad del hielo (1999) was runner-up in the Sky Television National Film Award category at the 2000 Cartagena Film Festival and his second short film La serenata (2007) was awarded an FCD (Film Development Fund) grant in Colombia. In 2006, he directed 21 one-hour episodes for the series “Qué tal Pascual”, produced by Telemedellín and RTVC and broadcast on Señal Colombia.
 
Carlos Cesar has received several grants for script development including a “City of Medellin” award for best unpublished fiction screenplay in 2005. Two years later he won a feature screenwriter’s grant from the Mayor’s Office of the City of Medellin for his project Los ojos de la paloma. He won this same award again in 2010 with his screenplay for Eso que llaman amor, also awarded a Carolina Foundation grant in 2010.
 
His first feature film, Los colores de la montaña, was awarded a Films in Progress Award at the 17^th Toulouse Film Festival, an Ibermedia co-production grant, and a Film Development Fund (FDC) grant in Colombia. His work has screened at over 30 international festivals around the world, earning awards such as the Goyesca Award and the Special Jury Award at the Ronda International Film Festival; the Silver Taiga for debut films at the Russian Spirit of Fire Debutante’s International Film Festival; the Audience Award and the OCLACC Award at the 2010 Cartagena Film Festival (FICCI); and the Audience Award and the SIGNIS Award at the Freiberg International Film Festival in Switzerland.