{"id":32382,"date":"2025-12-08T09:39:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-08T17:39:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/?p=32382"},"modified":"2026-07-03T12:40:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T19:40:34","slug":"from-cali-to-quebec-the-new-chapter-of-oscar-ruiz-navia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/es\/from-cali-to-quebec-the-new-chapter-of-oscar-ruiz-navia\/","title":{"rendered":"From Cali to Quebec: The New Chapter of \u00d3scar Ruiz Navia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00d3SCAR RUIZ NAVIA, the great Colombian filmmaker, now hangs out, lives and makes films, in Montreal. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

VLAFF, which will celebrate its 24th anniversary in 2026, is a festival that has been a contemporary of directors who have been making films for two decades. One of them is \u00d3scar Ruiz Navia (Cali, Colombia, 1982), one of the most prolific Colombian filmmakers with a solid filmography as both director and producer, with films premiered at festivals such as Berlin, Cannes, and Toronto. We have presented almost all of his films as a director, starting with his \u00f3pera prima, EL VUELCO DEL CANGREJO (premiered and awarded in Berlin, 2009), and many others from his work as a producer. The list is extensive and represents some of the best Colombian\u2014and Latin American\u2014films of recent times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fortunately for us, Oscar emigrated to Canada, to beautiful Montreal, just two years ago. He recently finished his first work as a Canadian filmmaker, TIGERS CAN BE SEEN IN THE RAIN, which had its world premiere at the prestigious New York Film Festival a few months ago. A beautiful short film shot on 16mm and Super 8 during the Quebec winter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00d3scar has a previous film with Canadian participation while he was still living in Cali; FAIT VIVIR (2020), is a film about the unique music and dancers group Orquesta GKO<\/strong>. The group is based in Montreal and Oscar\u2019s sister Anina is part of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Programming Director Christian Sida chatted with Oscar Ru\u00edz last week, while \u00d3scar was moderating Q&As at the Montreal RIDM Documentary Festival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How has life as an immigrant been for you, and what are your plans?<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It’s been a very long process since the pandemic, a very complex process, and although I love my country and Cali very much, I felt a huge need to take a leap, a significant change in my career and personal life. The idea is to put down roots here. Obviously, I’m very interested in staying connected to Colombia. I still have my company in Colombia, but the idea is to stay here and be able to collaborate between both countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides working on your projects, what else do you do in Montreal? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I came in 2023 and enrolled at Concordia University to do a master’s degree in Film Studies. I finished, and I’m about to submit my thesis so I can graduate. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What project are you working on now? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Right now, I’m in post-production on a new short film called DUERMEVELA, duermevela is one single word, (Sleep, Wake, Sleep), which is like a state between sleep and wakefulness that happens to everyone, to all human beings. It’s a fiction short film that continues to explore the themes of grief and migration. I’m also developing a feature film called POPULAR which I’m making with Diana Bustamante. She’s the producer of the film, and it’s a co-production with Mexico, France, and Canada. We’re currently in the financing stage. We’re going to shoot most of it in Montreal and some in Cali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was your experience like with TIGERS CAN BE SEEN IN THE RAIN? <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was a very personal experience; everything was done in a very hands-on way, with the support of several Colombian and Canadian friends. Pablo Alvarez-Mesa and Charles Duquet (both based in Quebec) were the cinematographers. The support of Concordia University was also vital. Then I secured a Colombian co-production from Tri\u00e1ngulo (Sim\u00f3n V\u00e9lez) and special support from Burning (Diana Bustamante), both Colombian companies. I worked on the sound design with the talented Mercedes Gaviria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

VLAFF wishes \u00d3scar Ruiz the best of luck in Canada and many films to come!<\/em><\/strong>
Selected filmography as a director<\/strong>: EL VUELCO DEL CANGREJO (2009, Berlin FF), SOLECITO (2013, Cannes, Directors’ Fortnight), LOS HONGOS (2014, Locarno, Rotterdam FF). \u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00d3SCAR RUIZ NAVIA, the great Colombian filmmaker, now hangs out, lives and makes films, in Montreal.  VLAFF, which will celebrate its 24th anniversary in 2026, is a festival that has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":32394,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[78],"tags":[99],"class_list":["post-32382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-vlaffblog","tag-colombian-canadian-cinema"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32382"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32382\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32397,"href":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32382\/revisions\/32397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vlaff.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}