Dile que no me maten

Direction
Santiago Lozano
Country
Colombia
Format
Feature film
Type
Fiction
Original title
Dile que no me maten
Film presented in Toulouse

SIEMBRA / 2016 / Best Film

Scenario
Santiago Lozano

Santiago Lozano

Filmography

SIEMBRA – Locarno International Film Festival 2015 (Independent Critics Boccalino Award for best direction), Cinélatino Rencontres de Toulouse 2016 (Best Film), Cartagena’s 56th International Film Festival 2016 (Jury’s Special Award), Cali International Film Festival 2016 (Best Film)

Note of intent

In this jungle, the dead wander, lost. Here in my country, Colombia, in this war that doubles my age in duration, which echoes so much over the rest of the planet, we embark on a trip for the world of the dead, to meet the disappeared, with the silenced , with the dismembered ones, with those thrown to the river, with the buried ones in mass graves.
The film consists in meeting with the witnesses of the war, not to make a postcard on it, not to describe it but to ask, Why is it, as it is ?, echoing the narrative forms of naturalism.

Synopsis

Guajiro (55) lives inside the Chocó Jungle, in western Colombia. From an early age, he learned the arts of the mortuary rituals inherited from his ancestors, former African slaves. He accompanies the dead on their way to eternal rest, dressing their tombs, embalming their bodies, praying and singing. Every day, Guajiro prays for the souls of the purgatory, who in return protect him, guide him and also torment him. One night the souls announce his death, telling him that it will soon occur in Holy Time, but they warn him not to die near the church, not near the cemetery, or in his house. Guajiro embarks on a journey into the jungle to meet the appointment with his death. Defying the curfew imposed by the armed groups that dispute the territory, he will have to survive the arms so that his soul can rest in peace and does not add itself to the souls of the purgatory.

Visual concept

In the construction of this narrative, the organic juxtaposition of the images will create a cinematographic piece traversed by the musicality proper to space, the forest, the river, men that cross the landscape, prayers, bombs, shots, the machines that drag the earth in the mines and the engines of the boats that tear the surface of the river. In this way, the sound will seek to anticipate the spectra, the illusions that become visions, and accompany the character in a duality of protection and torment.

Objectives sought in Films in Development

Finding coproducers

Shooting planned date

2020

Planned shooting location

San Juan River, Chocó, Colombia

Percentage of funding in place
25%
Project's development phase

In development

Production
Bárbara Films
Producer's biography

Santiago Lozano (Colombia, 1978). In 2015 co-directed, with Angela Osorio, SIEMBRA (world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival / Best film award at Cinélatino, Rencontres de Toulouse 2016). He is professor at Cinema and Digital Communication program of Universidad Autónoma de Occidente. Currently part of 36 session of the Residence of the Cinefundación of the Festival of Cannes.