BIRDS OF PASSAGE

(PÁJAROS DE VERANO)

Thursday, Feb. 13, 2020            7:00-9:30pm             Wells Hall B122

For directions, please click HERE.

Genre: Crime, Drama

ABOUT THE FILM

Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego /Colombia/2018/125 min

Wayuu, English, and Spanish with English subtitles

Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra, the creative team behind Oscar®-nominated Embrace Of The Serpent (also available for your SFC festival), return with this inspired mob epic for the ages — a completely fresh take on the origins of the Colombian drug trade, far from Narcos and Escobar, as told through the story of an indigenous Wayúu family.

In the 1970s, as an American-fueled marijuana boom hits Colombia, farmers quickly turn into seasoned businessmen starting a narco-trafficking era known as “la Bonanza Marimbera.” In the Guajira desert, one indigenous Wayúu clan takes a leading role. Guided by matriarch Ursula Pushaina, the “Birds of Passage”—drug runners—face the constant risk of violence and incarceration from the outsiders in Northern Colombia. The cultural differences between the native population and the newcomers begin a brutal war that threatens to destroy the Wayúu way of life. As greed, passion, and honor blend together over the decades, the family’s unity, their lives, and their ancestral traditions are all put at stake. A true story, the visually striking Birds of Passage is as much a thriller as it is an anthropological study on the consequences of outside influences to indigenous traditions.

ABOUT THE DIRECTORS

Ciro Guerra was born on Río de Oro (Cesar, Colombia) in 1981 and studied film and television at the National University of Colombia. At the age of 21, after directing four multi-award-winning short films, he wrote and directed La sombra del caminante (The Wandering Shadow), his feature directorial debut, which won awards at the San Sebastian, Toulouse, Mar de Plata, Trieste, Havana, Quito, Cartagena, Santiago, and Warsaw film festivals, and was selected for 60 more, including Tribeca, Locarno, Seoul, Pesaro, Seattle, Hamburg, Kolkata, Rio de Janeiro, Istanbul, and Guadalajara. His second feature film, Los viajes del viento (The Wind’s Journeys), was part of the Official Selection – Un Certain Regard of the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. It was released in 17 countries and selected by 90 festivals, including Toronto, Rotterdam, San Sebastián, Hong Kong, Jerusalem, and London, receiving different awards in Cannes, Santa Bárbara, Málaga, Santiago, Bogotá, and Cartagena. It was recently selected in a national critic’s poll as one of the 10 most important Colombian films.

Isabel Cristina Gallego Lozano was born in Bogotá in 1978. She graduated from the School of Film & TV of the National University of Colombia in 2003, and in Advertising & Marketing at the Politécnico Grancolombiano in 1999. Between 2003 and 2007 she worked as a producer of educational and cultural television at the National University of Colombia. In 1998, together with Ciro Guerra, she founded Ciudad Lunar, a company that produced the acclaimed feature films Wandering Shadows (2004), The Wind Journeys (2009), and Embrace of the Serpent (2015), all directed by Ciro Guerra.

A discussion with Miguel Cabañas (Associate Professor of Spanish) will follow this screening.