The Cartagena Film Festival Comes to Town

Last year during the annual Cartagena Film Festival I really did not feel like I knew the public transportation or the city that well and did not even attempt to go into town to see a movie, but this year was a different story.  After a bit more than a year at site I am still horrible with directions, but at least I know how to get to all of the places that matter in Cartagena.  And by that I mean anywhere with wifi or AC within a 10 mile radius.  So I was not going to let the Film Festival come and go again without seeing a single movie.

Some friends came up on Friday and throughout the week I saw three movies costing a grand total of 0 pesos.  Thats right, the Cartagena Film Festival is absolutely free!  And as a wise Peace Corps Response volunteer once told me, “If it’s free, it’s for me and give me three.”  So trying to live by that unofficial PC slogan, I saw as many movies as I could.  One of the movies I caught was a late night movie, under the starts, officially starting at 8:00 (really started at 8:45ish), called Football Rebels.  This was by far my favorite of the three.  It documented how soccer can have a huge effect of the peace process of countries that are at war.  It followed the lives of some really well know soccer players, including Didier Drogba.  And after the movie all of the soccer players from the movie came out, minus Drogba who is currently playing somewhere in Turkey, and answered some questions.  The most recognized player was French striker and ex Manchester United Player, Eric ‘King Eric‘ Cantona.  

However, the surprise of the festival was when I was coming back from doing some errands one night and saw a few things that looked a bit out of the Boquilla norm.  First off, there was a huge long hall truck parked in the middle on one of the roads.  There were also a bunch of people carrying plastic chairs (usually they stay put) and lastly, an overall lack of blaring champeta music.  So I walked over to take a closer look at what was going on.  Turns out that the Cartagena Film Festival took the show on the road and came to La Boquilla.  The previously mentioned truck had a huge projector attached horizontally so the storing compartment became the screen.  I curiously took a seat beside some students and we watched a high school student made movies about Afro-Colombian pride and the importance of preserving the Afro-Colombian culture.  Now I don’t recall the movie’s names, but it was great to see that the organizers of the festival recognized the importance of this topic and came to an Afro-Colombian community to show the locally produced movie FOR FREE!