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I Saw Three Black Lights film image; man stands in front of forest canopy

I Saw Three Black Lights

Yo vi tres luces negras

Vanguard

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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

Director
Cast

Jesús María Mina, Julián Ramirez, Carol Hurtado, John Alex Castillo

Credits
Country of Origin

Colombia/Mexico/
France/Germany

Year

2024

Language

In Spanish with English subtitles

Film Contact
Links
18+
87 min
Black Cinema Drama Q&As at VIFF
Contravía Films

Book Tickets

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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 headshot; I Saw Three Black Lights director

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)

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