THE SOLDIER’S LAGOON
La laguna del soldado
Monday, Sept 9 at 5:15 PM
The Cinematheque
Director: Pablo Álvarez-Mesa
Montreal/Colombia | 2024 | Spanish with English subtitles | 75 min | Experimental
Sliding Scale Tickets:
$13 / $15 / $18 / $21
Plus $3 VLAFF Membership required
The Soldier’s Lagoon delves deep into the misty Páramo region, into an ecosystem rich in water, but also saturated with oral narratives that populate the territory like foggy patches. Reflecting on the construction of oral history and its relation to the land, the film traverses the Páramo; a living and elusive archive, navigating through the dense fog suspended between Simon Bolivar’s past and Colombia’s present.
The Soldier’s Lagoon is the second in a three-part series of films exploring the intersection of oral narratives, political outcomes and the territories marked by Simón Bolívar’s passage during the Liberation Campaign of Colombia in 1819. The first completed part is Bicentenario (Berlinale Forum Expanded 2021).
La laguna del soldado recorre el viaje del Libertador a través de las marismas de gran altitud mientras busca destellos de su fantasma aún presente en este territorio históricamente disputado, 200 años después de la campaña de liberación de Simón Bolívar en Colombia.
“Fans of formally daring and boundary-pushing cinema simply must see The Soldier’s Lagoon (La laguna del soldado). This shape-shifting poetic film from director Pablo Álvarez-Mesa deftly considers the history of the land and the stories that permeate its every being.”
-Pat Mullen, POV: Canada’s Documentary Magazine
Official Selection, Cinéma du Réel – International Documentary Film Festival, 2024
Best Canadian Feature Documentary Award, Hot Docs, 2024
Colin Low Award for Best Canadian Director, DOXA Film Festival, 2024
PABLO ALVAREZ-MESA
Pablo Alvarez-Mesa is a filmmaker, cinematographer and editor whose films and collaborations have played and earned awards internationally. Pablo is an affiliate member of the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling at Concordia University, and a Berlinale Talents, Banff Centre for the Arts and Canadian Film Centre alumnus.
This film qualifies for the People’s Choice Award, presented by
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts.
