Un tigre de papel

This is the self-portrait of the Grupo de Cali, also known as “Caliwood,” a group of friends and cinephiles who, amid the wild partying and historical chaos spanning from 1971 to 1991, managed to produce a body of work now considered a fundamental part of Colombia’s film history. It is also the clinical history of the filmmaker himself, who fell gravely ill during the production of the film.

La Desazón Suprema: Retrato incesante de Fernando Vallejo is a feature-length documentary about this controversial Colombian writer who lives in Mexico. Despite having directed three movies and published five autobiographies, Fernando Vallejo was practically unknown until the publication and later film adaptation of Our Lady of the Assassins, directed by Barbet Schroeder. By deciding to speak in the first person, without pretence, about his likes and dislikes, Vallejo breaks with an ingrained literary tradition: that of the omniscient narrator who sees and knows all.