IGUALADA
Saturday, Sept 7 at 4:15 PM
The Cinematheque
Director: Juan Mejía Botero
Colombia/US | 2024 | Spanish with English subtitles | 80 min | Documentary
Preceded by the short film Three Rooms by Andrea López.
Sliding Scale Tickets:
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In Colombia, a nation marred by profound racial and socio-economic disparities, a Black woman from a rural background challenges the status quo by launching a presidential campaign. Reappropriating the term “igualada,” Francia Márquez, catapults a movement to the upper echelons of power, by refusing to “know her place.” Fifteen years in the making, this documentary peels back the curtain on how unprecedented change can happen.
En Colombia, una nación marcada por profundas desigualdades raciales y socioeconómicas, una mujer negra de la zona rural reta el status quo lanzándose a la campaña presidencial. Reapropriándose del término “igualada”, Francia Márquez, catapulta un movimiento hacia los más altos rangos del poder, negándose a “aceptar su lugar”. Un proceso de quince años en desarrollo, el documental revela cómo este cambio sin precedentes ocurrió.
“Grade A-. A powerful portrait of trailblazing Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez.”
–José Solis, The Film Stage
Nominee, Ibero American Competition, Seattle International Film Festival, 2024
Nominee, Grand Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival, 2024
Nominee, Best Documentary, Minneapolis St. Paul International Film Festival, 2024
Juan Mejia Botero is an award-winning film director with over 25 years of experience in feature documentaries. His work has focused primarily on human rights abuses and struggles for social justice around the world. He has worked extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean where he has directed a number of films on forced displacement, ethnic autonomy, state violence, and the competition for natural resources, which have played widely in the festival circuit and television.
Juan’s award-winning directorial debut, Uprooted, aired nationally on PBS in 2011. His feature documentary The Battle for Land, was a winner of a production grant from the Colombian Ministry of Culture, a postproduction grant from the Tribeca Film Institute, and the 2016 Honesty Oscar for Best Picture. Juan’s documentary, Death by a Thousand Cuts, shot along the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, premiered at the HotDocs Film Festival in Toronto, and received numerous awards including the Audience Award at DocNYC, the Grand Jury Prize at the Seattle International Film Festival, Winner at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, Jury Prize at the Environmental Film Festival at Yale, and Best of Festival at the Princeton Environmental Film Festival. Juan has produced a number of episodes for Netflix’s, Amend: The Fight for America, ABC’s, Soul of a Nation, and Hulu’s, Killing County. His latest feature, IGUALADA, premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, 2024 and is preparing it’s television release in 2025.
This film qualifies for the People’s Choice Award, presented by
