Avian symbolism permeates Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra’s drama about the damaging impact of outside forces on the indigenous peoples of Colombia, telling a Godfather-like saga about the drug trade’s destruction of the traditional culture of the Wayuu, a group that inhabits the arid Guajira Peninsula in the country’s north. In order to secure the dowry he needs to win the hand of the beautiful Zaida (Natalia Reyes), the daughter of local matriarch Ursula (Carmiña Martinez), Raphayet (José Acosta) goes into business as a middleman between a powerful marijuana grower and buyers from Medellin and the U.S. But the lucrative business brings problems: Raphayet’s partner Moisés (Jhon Narváez) is an “alijuna”—or outsider—with a volatile temper and an itchy trigger finger, and Zaida’s brother Leonídas (Greider Meza) broods over his loss of leadership in the community. This combination ultimately proves combustible, ripping apart the clan system that is the foundation of Wayuu culture and leading to a virtual civil war that leaves the region’s indigenous traditions in tatters and the interlopers in control. Birds of Passage conveys a sense of mystery in its depiction of native custom and belief, while at the same time using familiar tropes from gangster melodrama to make the unusual milieu accessible. The result is a distinctive, compelling drama. Highly recommended. (F. Swietek)
Birds of Passage Official Trailer
Mike Nelson/EPA/REX/Shutterstock
Birds of Passage Directors
Ciro Guerro (Left) and Cristina Gallego
DIRECTORS' STATEMENT
"A film of both gangsters and spirits. A family film, an ensemble of strong, intuitive, resilient, and powerful women; who wait at home for unconscious, impulsive, fearful men as they talk, they negotiate, they run around.
Intuition vs. reason; innocence vs. vengeance, word vs. honour, all in telling the great tragedy that would curse us forever. The great taboo that we are not allowed to discuss.
Told, for once, in an intimate, personal way. Our own way. That soft breeze that seemed to come to refresh, and became the ravaging storm that showed us the true face of capitalism, its purest form. Our jayeechi, our birdsong.
- Cristina Gallego / Ciro Guerra
Birds of Passage | Sell Sheet
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