14 Oct, CI.- Del otro lado, director Iván Guarnizo’s debut film, is a personal quest to understand a chapter of the armed conflict that touched him and his family directly, when they heard the news of his mother’s kidnapping in the jungle of Guaviare. It is a journey to find the truth, to heal the wounds of war. This feature film has won several international awards.
When Beatriz Echeverry regained her freedom, after spending 603 days kidnapped by the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), she carried a notebook with her in which she tried to faithfully register each of her days in captivity. This diary, the logbook of a direct victim of the long-armed conflict that Colombia still suffers today, served as a pretext for the director and son of Beatriz, Iván Guarnizo, to embark on a personal quest that is captured in the documentary Del otro lado (The Other Side).
Guarnizo sets out with his brother Papeto to better understand why his mother said before her death that she had forgiven those who deprived her of her freedom in 2004. Del otro lado is a rough story that, at times, in a direct and above all sincere way, leads us on this family journey through mountains and jungles in search of a part of the truth that Colombia needs in order to heal and reconcile.
Guarnizo reveals what is already known to all: that the peace agreement with the FARC has failed due to the non-fulfilment of a large part of what was agreed. In the end, the director himself confesses, he does not intend to set himself up as an example of reconciliation with the actors of the war, but rather to heal himself from a passage full of pain and anguish, which 15 years later seems to be coming to an end. In this sense, it offers an honest, balanced production with impeccable filmmaking.
Iván Guarnizo’s first feature film arrives on Colombian screens on 14 October and had its world premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival and its European premiere at the Malaga Festival (Spain), where it also won a Special Jury Mention and the Audience Award. At the Thessaloniki Festival it won the “Newcomers” award for Best First Film-Golden Alexander-Dimitri Eipides and the Human Values Award of the Hellenic Parliament.
