A street artist by night, during the day Ras is a worker in Cali, Colombia, who helps support his mother María, who emigrated from the Pacific jungle. When he is fired for having stolen a few cans of paint, he doesn’t want to return home and instead roams the streets in search of Calvin, another writer who is going through a rough period because of his parents’ divorce and his grandmother’s illness. The two wander aimlessly through the city, with a freedom that contaminates everything around them.
Biography
film director
Oscar Ruiz Navia
Oscar Ruiz Navia (Cali, Colombia, 1982) graduated in social communications from Universidad del Valle. In 2006 he founded Contravia Films, a platform to develop and produce art house films. With his debut feature film El vuelco del cangrejo he won the International Critics Award FIPRESCI at Berlinale (Forum) 2010 and was selected in more than seventy festivals around the world. In 2013 he directed the short film Solecito selected in Director’s Fortnight at Cannes Film Festival. His second feature film Los hongos was presented in the Cineasti del presente section at Locarno Film Festival.
FILMOGRAFIA
El vuelco del cangrejo (2010), Solecito (cm, 2013), Los hongos (2014).
Declaration
film director
“Los hongos is linked to my life in Cali, the mid-sized city in southwestern Colombia where I was born, grew up, studied and fell in love with film. I spent some time away, but following the illness and subsequent death of my grandmother, I decided to return. I tried to make a film that mixes my memories with new experiences, places I’m familiar with and those unknown to me, people who have been with me throughout my life and those I met for the first time during this experience. Working in that limbo between what I can control and something I have absolutely no control over, with all the difficulty this implies, all of which I find deeply fascinating.”
Cast
& Credits
Oscar Ruiz Navia
sceneggiatura/screenplay
Oscar Ruiz Navia, César Augusto Acevedo
fotografia/cinematography
Sofia Oggioni Hatty
montaggio/film editing
Felipe Guerrero
scenografia/production design
Daniela Shneider, Alejandro Franco
musica/music
La Llegada del Dios Rata, Zalama Crew, Sebastián Escofet
suono/sound
Leandro de Loredo, César Salazar, Frédéric Thery
interpreti e personaggi/cast and characters
Jovan Alexis Marquinez Angulo (Ras), Calvin Buenaventura Tascón (Calvin), Gustavo Ruiz Montoya (Gustavo), Atala Estrada (la ñaña), María Elvira Solís (María), Dominique Tonnelier (Dominique), Ángela García (Angelito)
produttori/producers
Diana Bustamente, Gerylee Polanco Uribe, Oscar Ruiz Navia
produzione/production
Contravia Films, Burning Blue
coproduttori/coproducers
Guillaume de Seille, Nicolás Avruj, Titus Kreyenberg
coproduzione/coproduction
Arizona Productions, Campo Cine, Unafilm