Ver Cine Colombiano: Noticias | Proimágenes Colombia

Established in 1993, the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Film Festival is the largest documentary film festival in North America and one of the most important in the audiovisual industry, with an annual event in Toronto, Canada. In addition to the festival, Hot Docs runs multiple production funds and conducts screening programs throughout the year, including Doc Soup and Hot Docs Showcase.  
 
Participating in its 2022 edition was Alis, a feature-length documentary produced by Casatarántula, in which, in a Colombian hostel for teenage girls, directors Nicolás van Hemelryck and Clare Weiskopf ask a group of young women to close their eyes and imagine the life story of a fictional classmate named Alis. Like theirs, Alis' story begins on the ruthless streets of Bogotá, where she struggles to survive. Alis becomes their blank canvas to project their past experiences and selves. The directors show how the girls' initial fiction begins becoming true and how this distance has given them a moment to step outside of themselves and see their own experiences from a different perspective. The film was part of the Made in Chile section as this country made a small contribution to the production after receiving the Crystal Bear and the Teddy Award for Best Film at the 72nd edition of the Berlin Film Festival. 

After having its world premiere at the Berlinale Forum, Mis dos voces (My two voices) was part of the Canadian Spectrum section. The film, directed by Colombian-Canadian filmmaker Lina Rodríguez and produced by herself and Brad Deane, follows Marinela, born in Canada but sent back to Colombia four years later. Returning to Canada as an adult has left her with the odd experience of relearning a place she once knew. Marinela and two other Latina immigrant women share memories and feelings that have shaped their lives in the diaspora. Common themes and shared experiences slowly emerge: a struggle with language, a fraught relationship with memory, and issues with belonging. Shot in 16mm, the film keeps the women's identities hidden as their voices guide a portrait of migration and the multiple meanings surrounding it.
 
Guillermo Moncayo's Sin asunto (No subject), a short film produced by Capucine Mahé and part of the REFRESH Vol 3 Catalog, took part in the Shorts section. It is a movie within a movie that combines the fictional story of a zookeeper's attempts to reconnect with his estranged daughter, the filmmaker's actual correspondence with his brother about a prolonged family silence, and an allegory about a depressed alligator that refuses to resurface. A dreamy experiment in genre-bending, it creates an environment where intention and result can talk.
 
Along with Moncayo's film, the Shorts section had the world premiere of the Colombian-Dutch co-production, When the Shot, by Ana Bravo. The film is an immersive first-person narrative that places the viewer inside the filmmaker's experience of a violent attack. It focuses on the feelings and sensations that fear elicits and how life flashing in front of your eyes might actually appear: a fusion of blood and water, body and memory, jagged edges, and abstractions of familiar yet indistinct landscapes. 
 
Finally, the Hot Docs Forum, a section focused on project financing, featured Milisuthando (South Africa, Colombia, United States) by Milisuthando Bongela, a film co-produced by the Colombian company Viso Producciones. Set in South Africa's past and present, Milisuthando is a personal poetic essay on love and what it means to become human in the context of race.