Chris Gude

White powder, dealers and poseur women in a shady city you hardly get a glimpse of. Not to forget a man who introduces himself as a warrior talking to spirits. Salsa lovers share they love for gorillas, cocaine, sex and massages.

The 𝘳𝘶𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘴 evidence the presence of the person filming, revealing their movement and their center; they are the record of a hesitation seeking balance, testimony to the measurement of time. In that sustained gaze that pursues the precision of a gesture, meanings and bewilderment suddenly unfold. Filming, then, is the construction of a logic permeated by speculation, which in turn fertilizes it.

Chris Gude returns to Colombia – specifically La Guajira, a peninsula on the frontier with Venezuela – following the footsteps of a sailor and smuggler who travelled through isolated ports and deserted lands, at the edges of the rules of State and capital.

In Venezuelan Guayana, large gold reserves lie beneath “moriche” palms, attracting multitudes of miners from across the region. A narrator travels from far-flung mines in the jungle to the banks of the Orinoco River, trying to understand the uncertain fortune of the miner. His reflections combine illustrations and photochemical paintings to draw a map of the extraction and commercialization of gold, object and symbol through which he questions where value resides. Morichales is a journey through an occult jungle immersed in the quest for redemption.