Sep 20th 2018

Camilo Restrepo in person

In recent years, award-winning Colombian filmmaker Camilo Restrepo has gained a reputation for striking explorations of personal and political trauma, survival, and resistance. Featuring Réunion Island singer Christine Salem, Cilaos (2016) uses the incendiary rhythms of maloya, ritual music derived from slave songs, to tell the story of a woman driven to meet her estranged father after he dies. Mirroring these themes, La Bouche (2017) stars Guinean percussion master Mohamed Bangoura as a father who is called upon to avenge the murder of his daughter—a story loosely based on his own. Restrepo takes up the enduring effects of colonialism and paramilitary conflict in South America, particularly Colombia, in Tropic Pocket (2011) and La impresión de una guerra (2015), which draws parallels between the deadly “invisible borders” gangs have carved across the city of Medellín, the tattoos of prisoners, and the color of the Medellín River, permanently dyed with textile factory pollution. In French, Réunion Creole, Susu, and Spanish with English subtitles.

Presented in collaboration with SAIC’s Video Data Bank.

2011–17, Colombia/France, multiple formats, ca 70 min + discussion.

Camilo Restrepo was born in Medellín, Colombia and is currently based in Paris, France. He is a member of L’Abominable, an artist-run film laboratory. His films have been selected for international film festivals including Director’s Fortnight, Cannes; Toronto Film Festival; New York Film Festival; Viennale; Rotterdam Film Festival; Berlin Critics’ Week; Belo Horizonte International Short Film Festival, Brazil; Festival Internacional de Cine de Gijón, Spain; Antofadocs, Chile; Bilbao International Festival of Documentary and Short Films (Zinebi), Spain; and the Locarno Festival, Switzerland, where he has won twice the Pardino d’Argento award.

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