Canadian Premiere
Santiago Lozano Álvarez’s second feature is an assured, quietly profound drama that sees an elder embark on a final journey into the jungle to settle a spiritual debt and reconnect with his late son. On his way, he is challenged by individuals and situations that test his resolve. Jesús María Mina commands the screen with dignified fortitude as one of the last healers practicing traditional burial rites. In his mystical terms, the voyage marks the ultimate bow to the sacred line of ancestral clairvoyance and secrets of the shamanic trade.
Elegantly shot with moments of arresting portraiture, the film immerses one into the depths of the lush Colombian rainforest, flooding the senses with its alluring rhythms and sounds. It unfolds as a cinematic love letter to the disappearing spiritual traditions unique to the people of these lands, highlighting regional intricacies and communities trying to make peace with ghosts of its colonial past.
Oct 4: Q&A with director Santiago Alvarez Lozano
Presented by
Media Partner
Community Partner
Jesús María Mina, Julián Ramirez, Carol Hurtado, John Alex Castillo
Colombia/Mexico/
France/Germany
2024
In Spanish with English subtitles
Book Tickets
Indigenous & Community Access
Indigenous Access Tickets Community Access Tickets Ticket Donation Requests
Credits & Director
Producer
Ana María Ruiz Navia, Oscar Ruiz Navia
Screenwriter
Santiago Lozano Álvarez, Fernando del Razo
Cinematography
Juan Velásquez
Editor
Ana García, Santiago Lozano Álvarez
Production Design
Marcela Gómez
Original Music
Nidia Góngora
Santiago Lozano Álvarez
Santiago Lozano Álvarez has a degree in Social Communications from Universidad del Valle Cali-Colombia and a master’s degree in Script for Film and TV from Universidad Carlos III, Madrid, Spain. He is currently a professor in the film school at the Universidad Autónoma de Occidente. He has made several documentary shorts before his feature fiction debut, Siembra, co-directed with Ángela Osorio (premiered at Locarno Film Festival, Filmmakers of the Present 2015 and winner of Best Film at Cinélatino Toulouse 2016). He was part of the Cannes Cinéfondation Residency in 2018 to develop Yo vi tres luces negras.
Filmography: Siembra (2015)
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Palimpsest: The Story of a Name
Drawing on home movies and diaries from the 1930s, 40s, 50s and 60s, Canadian filmmaker Mary Stephen (Eric Rohmer's editor for many years) investigates the origins of her surname. After all, she was born in Hong Kong to Chinese parents. Or were they... ?
Buffalo '66
Vincent Gallo's directorial debut is an eccentric, provocative comedy which laces a poignant love story with both a sombre, washed-out naturalism and surreal musical vignettes. This one is something different...
Run Lola Run
In the hyper intense world of pre-millennial Berlin, Lola has just 20 minutes to come up with a 100,000 Deutchmarks or her boyfriend cops it. He's asking the right woman: Lola won't stop til she's saved the day... It's Speed, in the multiverse...
Saving Private Ryan
Steven Spielberg's gripping war movie was hailed as an instant classic in 1998, and he won his second Academy Award in five years for Best Director. Matt Damon takes the title role, Tom Hanks is charged with bringing him home from the front.
Searching for Satyrus
Award-winning filmmaker and photographer Rena Effendi embarks on a quest to track down the very rare Satyrus Effendi, a butterfly discovered by her father in the mountains of Aberbaijain. But what she finds is altogether more personal, and more upsetting.

