The Embrace of the River
- BELGIUM, COLOMBIA / 2010 / Spanish / Color / Video / 73 min
Director: Nicolas Rincon Gille
www.losabrazosdelrio.com/en/
The 1,540 kilometer-long Magdalena River flows from western Colombia into the Caribbean Sea. The people who live along its banks have historically revered Mohan, the spirit of the river who provides their daily sustenance and also takes their lives in aquatic accidents. Amid a thick, mysterious fog, people offer cigars and local distilled liquor to Mohan in exchange for a bountiful catch of fish. Stories of encounters with Mohan are eloquently told, propelled by the voluminous flow of the river. Eventually, numerous testimonies regarding floating body parts dismembered in massacres bring us into contact with the realities that Colombia faces today. It adeptly unites these truths with the river as an intersection of life and death, the living and spirits, and quietly laments the fierce anger and deep sadness of women who have lost their sons and siblings.
• Oct. 9 A6 | Oct. 10 CL