Carol Ann Figueroa

In 2018, a group of filmmakers calling themselves "Los Quietos" set out to make a film essay on a hypothetical syndrome of stillness in the Republic of Colombia. To this end, they invite Colombian documentary master Luis Ospina, presidential candidate Gustavo Petro and writer Juan Gabriel Vásquez to give them clues to delve into the history, geography and idiosyncrasy of Colombia, a country that, paradoxically, has very little of stillness. For unknown reasons, the project remained unfinished.

PATIENT is the word that defines us as we follow medical instructions or have to stay calm while we wait. In Colombia, a country where the harsh health system requires its users to face absurd bureaucratic obstacles to access its services, PATIENT is not only the one who has the disease, but also the one in the daily struggle ensuring that his or her loved one receives all necessary needs. Nubia is a PATIENT, a mother who, despite living with the anguish of possibly losing her daughter to an aggressive cancer, firmly gets to overcome the labyrinths established by the Health System processes upon which her daughter's life depends.

The stories told in this documentary span the twenty-five years of existence of the now-defunct La Gorgona prison, located on the island of the same name. Thus, confinement, violence, and isolation gave rise to many escape attempts, but few were successful. Through interviews with individuals who experienced these events firsthand, the use of animated reenactments, and the emphasis on the power of nature, this work visually reproduces journalist Silvia Luz Gutiérrez's investigation into the mysteries surrounding various characters and their different fates.

Filmed between 1945 and 1971, 16memorias tells the story of the Posada Saldarriaga, a Medellín family that grew up amid the euphoria of industrialization, the sugar mills sugar bowls, trips to Miami, sows and balloons. Twenty five years of almost uninterrupted daily life that they were about to get lost in an old house they give us the strange possibility of seeing our childhood for the first time; to recover brother's accomplice smile when we conquer kingdoms that no one else saw and felt how powerful we were every time we received applause from our parents. Searching the origin of adult life and recognizing the distance that separates us from those scenes wonderful, what seemed to be a cluster of forgotten images becomes the only evidence that remains to ensure that there was a time when we believed that all days were to be warm, simple, and blue.