“Not My Name,” the latest from Colombian powerhouse Dago García Producciones, and “High Tide” and “Name and Surname,” both from Evidencia Films, a driving force behind a new generation of Colombian filmmaking, feature among the wide-ranging lineup of fiction feature projects at this year’s Bogotá Audiovisual Market.
“Not My Name,” a coming of age drama thriller from Juan Paulo Laserna (“Malas Lenguas,” “Manuela”), joins DGP credits that encompass Netflix hit “Eva Lasting” and co-production of “Memories of My Father,” “Birds of Passage,” “Litigante,” “Killing Jesus” and “Monos.”
Headed by Franco Lolli and Capucine Mahé, Evidencia Films’ has produced films by Juan Sebastián Quebrada and Simón Mesa Soto – both included in Variety’s New Generation of Colombian Directors to Watch.
“High Tide,” a maternity drama fromMariana Saffon, another director highlighted by Variety, was selected for 2025 Torino FilmLab’s Feature Lab and won an Artekino Intl. Prize at the San Sebastián Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum in 2024. “It’s a timeless feminine and cinematographic portrait that shall resonate with audiences around the world,” says Mahé.
“Name and Surname,” from Duván Duque, scooped a Sørfond Award at 2024’s Ventana Sur, for waht Duque calls “a social portrait of Colombia and any and all Latin American country where lack of opportunity and social barriers are still so strong that it leads many families to enter illegal business just to take a chance at life, often at their own family’s happiness’ cost.”
Of other BAM projects, its fiction feature film lineup also includes third age love story “This Bolero Is For ‘Ita’’ which proved a big winner at Mexico’s Guadalajara Co-Production Meetings, sweeping four prizes, including Lemon Studios development aid. It is now in co-production talks, say its makers.
BAM’s TV strand takes in “House Eight,” is from high-flying Mexican outfit Mandarina Cine, a global SXSW Audience Award winner (“Corina”) and Berlinale Perspectives best film winner (“The Devil Smokes”).
Some titles are boundary pushing. “Our goal is to make sexual dissident memories visible and contribute to Latin American cinema from a sensitive and committed point of view,” says CreAs Films’ Adriana Denisse-Silva, “The Queers Riot” exec producer.
“Colombia has long been a country where Indigenous peoples have been systematically erased or reduced to stereotypical figures: the silent sage, the eternal victim, the decorative symbol of a distant past,” says director Mauricio Acosta.
“In fiction cinema, their presence has been minimal—and when it has existed, it has rarely been on their own terms,” he adds. “‘Barbed Wires’ emerges as a response to this absence, as an act of self-representation woven through collective creation (minga), where the narrative is not imposed but shaped through dialogue, embodied in the bodies, languages, and sensibilities of the territory.”
Laserna received his B.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, a M.F.A. in film directing and TV writing at Columbia University.
Almost all titles are grounded in social realities, even if that grounding is not in fact but mindscapes.
“‘Wood’ is our love letter to Barranquilla, in memory of our grandparents,” says co-director Juan Heilbron. It’s “a tribute to our roots, our essence, and our culture. It is a story about absences: of people, of history, of certainties. That is why this fiction is not built on facts, but rather on traversing the labyrinths of memory. Fiction fills the gaps of reality.”
At their best, titles question slovenly thinking. “Marithea,” for instance, depicts a young Afro-Colombian rapper who has earned her place in the world of freestyle, which is historically dominated by men. “However, far from what many might assume, she doesn’t seek to be seen as a victim or turned into a symbol just for being a Black woman,” says director Diego Cruz. “Her story invites us to question the stereotypes imposed by the entertainment industry and opens up reflections on identity and representation.”
A drill down on individual titles in BAM’s feature and TV strands:
Feature Projects
“Barbed Wires,” (“Alambradas”) (Mauricio Acosta Rangel. Prod: Leidys María Tejeda)
Set in the mountains of Caldono, three Nasa women react to rape, the murder of a loved one and a lack of justice as they battle to free their minds and hearts. Directed by Mauricio Acosta Rangel, produced by Tejeda, Vilma Almendra and Constanza Cuetia for Chiguaco Cine and shot with a cast and crew made up mostly of Nasa women.
“Beast,” (“El Bestia”) (Isidoro Sarfati. Prod: Carolina Amador)
Trained by the merciless El Buda, Gama battles to transform his rage, memories of a brutal childhood, into glory as a boxing champion. Non-fiction specialist Bamba Films produces.
“Heartbreak,” (“Despecho,” Manuel Villa. Prod: Daniela Echeverri)
From Movimiento Cine, an essay doc-feature, set after the death of famed singer Dario Gómez, exploring his universe in Medellín. “Through tourist guides, radio hosts, prisoners, and everyday citizens, this documentary travels across a city where sorrow leaves visible traces,” says a synopsis. Doc feature “explores the deep emotional and cultural legacy of heartbreak in Medellín, where music becomes both symptom and salve. This is not just a film about a genre – it’s about how a city mourns, remembers, and keeps singing,” Villa tells Variety.
“High Tide,” (“Mar de Leva,” Mariana Saffon. Prod: Capucine Mahé, Colombia)
From 2020 Venice best short winner Saffon (“Entre tú y Milagros”), “High Tide” turns on Elena who, facing her father’s death and her lover’s divorce, suddenly feels a desire to become a mother. “I want to focus on the vertigo of someone just to become a mother and struck by a paralysing ambivalence,” Saffron tells Variety.
“Madera,” (Nicolás Palacio, Juan Heilbron, Colombia. Prod: Alejandra Orjuela Caicedo,)
The second feature from the directorial duo after “Limonada, Limonada,” a docu-fiction hybrid departing from a hypothetical scenario where the Colombian state – as an act of reparation – deploys actors to perform as absent loved ones within families affected by the country’s violence actors are paid to-play the role of absent figures. Also the directors’ homage to 1960s Barranquilla of their grandparents.
“Mike,” André Miranda, Prod: Alisson Machado. Brazil)
Mike, 42, leaves his job to attempt to win Brazil’s São Silvestre, the country’s most prestigious road race. Inspired by Brazil’s tradition of bricklayers and farm labourers who compete for money with fake brand shoes, says Miranda of his feature debut. Set up at Brasilia’s Machado Filmes, (New Life S.A., 2018; “Plano B,” 2013).
“Name and Surname,” (“Nombre y Apellidos,” Duván Duque Vargas. Prod: Fernando Lolli)
Fer, 16, battles to escape his father’s shady dealings and house, which compares unfavorably to those of his upper-class high school friends. Fer’s “navigating through the contrasting worlds of the fractured home of his father and his upper-class school friends will resonate strongly in the Latin American context,” Duque Vargas has told Variety.
“Not My Name,” (Juan Paulo Laserna. Prod: María Isabel Páramo, Iván García)
One of the biggest swings among BAM projects, set in 1996 Colombia, as the country succumbs to bloody insurgent warfare. A family travels to their dying grandfather, assuming aliases to avoid kidnapping, exposing son Alvaro, 10, to the reality of war. “Both visually powerful and grounded in lived experience,” “Not My Name” combines “haunting memory and a timely reflection on how violence warped our families, our sense of truth and our childhoods,” says Laserna.
“The Painting,” (“La Pintura,” Paula Moreno Vergara, Esteban Hoyos García Prod. Esteban Hoyos)
An ageing couple asks if they made the right decision emigrating to Tallinn and whether they should sell their dead daughter’s majestic painting hanging in their Tallinn apartment in order to give them the money to stay. Seen at June’s ECAM Forum in Madrid, produced by Colombia’s Selva Producciones and Alexandra Film in Estonia. “The film is simultaneously very Colombian and very Estonian, entirely set in Estonia, but with a mostly Colombian cast and crew. We are aiming to build a bridge between two distant countries joined by a past of violence and grief,” says Hoyos García.
“Passenger,” (“Pasajero,” Andrés Gómez. Prod: Andrea Corzo. Colombia)
Drowning in debt from his ill daughter’s medical bills, a taxi driver is offered a large sum of money to help the son of a well-healed family who killed a family of four when drunk and driving. Based on real events, a drama thriller exploring “how the need for survival many times overuses moral responsibility,” says Gómez. From Midi Produccioes, founded in 2018 by Marcela Patarroyo and Andrea Corzo.
“The Queers Riot,” (Wincy Oyarce. Prod: Adriana Silva, Chile)
A Málaga Festival Industry Zone winner from Wincy Oyarce, a Chilean LGBT pioneer celebrated for 2008’s “Empaná de pino,” a horror film starring Hija de Perra, and 2023 breakout doc-feature “Tan Inmunda y Tan Feliz.” A fiction feature with doc elements, charting the first recorded homosexual demonstration in Santiago, Chile organized in April 1973 by a group of young boy sex workers.
“Marithea,” (Diego Cruz. Prod: Frank Carreño, Colombia)
Marithea, tired of freestyle scene sexism, racist insults and the pressure of constant competition, aims to retire at her peak. But before, she has to fight one last battle. A bio doc portrait of real life Cali rapper, Maribel Gómez, “Marithea.”
“Retention,” (“Retención,” Gonzalo Escobar. Prod: Sebastián Martínez)
Based on real events, a mother requests a meeting with the man, now in prison, who shot dead his son, at which point the fiction feature begins to incorporates the real-life characters who inspired the film. Set up at Haus Kino (“Meteórito”), the feature debut of director-producer-visual artist Escobar who has exhibited at the North Miami Museum of Modern Art and Chicago’s Gene Siskel Film Center.
“This Bolero Is For ‘Ita,’’ (“Un Bolero Para Ita,” Camila Caballero. Prod: Sebastián Caballero)
Produced by Sebastián Caballero and Vanessa Gómez at Colombia’s Red Collision Studios (“The Judge’s Shadow”), an elderly radio host is stranded in Colombia when Venezuela closes its borders in 2016. As the rift with his wife of over 50 years deepens, he tries to reach her broadcasting the first bolero he ever dedicated to her.
“Vicissitudes of the Light,” (“Vicisitudes de la Luz,” Marcel Beltrán, Brazil)
Unveiling unpublished photos of Oliver Stone, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara, a film diary vision of iconic Cuban shutterbug Chinolope and the encounters and disagreements over 10 years of relationship between Beltrán and Chinolope. Meanwhile, the Cuban revolution Chinolope knew is collapsing outside. The latest from Cuban filmmaker Beltrán and Brazilian producer Paula Gastaud at Brazil-based outfit to-track Mediocielo Filmes, also behind “Moa.”
BAM Series
“The Blackout,” (El Apagón,” Daniel Mejía. Colombia)
Set during Colombia’s 1992 energy crisis, following Ester and Leo, a couple whose road trip takes a tragic turn when Ester vanishes without explanation. Written by Mejía and Daniela Carvajal and directed by Mejía, an Intl. Emmy Award nominee for “Dapinty, Una Aventura Musicolor.” “In a time and country shaped by darkness and unresolved violence, the series reimagines grief through magical realism,” says Mejía.
“Extra Time,” (“Tiempo de Descuento,” Germán Loza, Colombia)
A second-chance suspense dramedy, tracking Argentine coach Carlos Salvador, disgraced for cheating, who takes over a second division Colombian soccer team, charged with winning at any cost by its owner, the “Potato King,” who is laundering money. But to survive, Carlos will have to change… and learn that dignity can matter more than winning. “It’s a redemption story where football becomes a metaphor for second chances, told with the tragicomic heart that characterizes us as a region,” say writer Loza (“El Regreso de Lucas”) and producer Andres Beltrán Nossa at Chinasky Films.
“Gorgona,” (Felipe Cano. Prod: Julia Rincón. Colombia)
Based on true events, the Gorgona Island prison, 34 miles off the Pacific coast, was once one of the most brutal of tropical penitentiary for murderers, rapists and political prisoners, notorious for its use of torture. It saw 150 deaths in 24 years, says Cano. In the series, an activist, nun and former prisoner battle for its closure. Showrun by Cano, director of Star+’s “No Fue Mi Culpa.” Headed by Boris Abaunz, “Gorgona” creator, Epica Studio produces.
“House Eight,” (“Casa 8,” Brenda Navarro; Prod: Carlos Hernández. Mexico)
Terminally ill, eight women arrive at House Number 8 to be helped to die with dignity. Then the Witch, their spiritual and scientific leader, reveals she has developed an experimental method that can revive the dead, offering the possibility of eternal life. Showrun by Navarro, a writer (“Cometierra”) and novelist (“Ceniza en la boca.”) who promises a “sober, but moving” show, balancing “melancholy, strength and warmth.” “‘House 8’ brings to the forefront elements that we, as a Western society, refuse to address: the right to die in peace, the right to be free from pain, the right and strength of community and femininity,” says Hernández.
“The Ouada,” (“La Ouda,” Edwin Daniel Díaz. Prod: Andrés Jaime Santamaría)
David Rodríguez, a Colombian police captain, goes undercover in a brutal jail to discover a sect which carries our ritual sacrifices in worship of a supernatural god. Series, a psychological thriller, mixes “a crude realism, reflecting the brutality of prison life, with an air of supernatural mystery,” says Díaz. Produced by La Villa Producciones, behind Diaz’s feature “Vidas Cruzadas.”
“Pyme: Why Do I Deserve This?” (“Pyme: ¿Por Qué Yo Merezco Esto?”, Paula Lugo Hernández. Prod: Hernández, Camilo Cabrera. Colombia)
A divorcing unemployed physical therapist going through a divorce attempts to reinvent himself in order to keep custody of his daughter, deciding to enter a reality show for startups with her. A series that “blurs the line between fiction and non-fiction and with a heartfelt character-driven comedy at its core,” says Cabrera.
“Stop Crying,” (“Deja de Llorar,” Fidel Barboza. Prod: Diana Narváez. Colombia)
A struggling self-help writer is tasked with writing a best-seller, edited by his ex. She suggests he should write about the friend zone, which is where he left her, and she hasn’t forgotten. A “comedic melodrama moving from laughter to rage, joy to stress,” says Barboza. Colombia’s Los Notarios produces.
