Decades after they were forced to flee their village in the Colombian jungle, a community makes a poetically rendered return home. Preceded by short “Moune Ô”
Director: Sebastián Pinzón Silva and Canela Reyes
Runtime: 77
Fest Year: 2023
“They ran from the white man.” This, we’re told, is why the inhabitants of the Afro Colombian village of La Bonga fled their homes decades ago. Today, having never returned, the Bongueros keep the memory of their village alive through stories. For Maria de los Santos, however, tales of the past are not enough. Determined that her children know where they come from, Maria uses the occasion of the feast of La Bonga’s patron saint to organize a procession of hundreds of Bongueros back home through the jungle. Employing a deliberately—and sometimes literally—opaque narrative strategy, La Bonga, directed by Sebastián Pinzón Silva and Canela Reyes, refuses to make an ethnographic spectacle of this trek and this community, its rituals, and its history. Instead, its affectingly poetic—and hauntingly beautiful—approach honors the Bongueros and their indelible connection to the land. (JA) Preceded by short “Moune Ô”