Luis Ospina

Freely expressing his loves and hates, controversial Colombian and openly gay writer Fernando Vallejo (living in Mexico) breaks with an ingrained literary tradition: that of the omniscient writer who sees and knows everything. The film covers his literary output and his many interests: film, music, science, and politics. Made with the full support and participation of the author, it provides a portrait of one of the best Spanish-language writers.

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A video art piece that combines citations from the filmmaker’s first films with footage shot in India. It was commissioned by Colombian visual artist José Alejandro Restrepo and took inspiration from A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, by Roland Barthes.

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It begins with the tragedy of Armero, during the course investigates the murder of a beautiful woman and on his way some people die in the end a killing and a cemetery. Emerson Roque Fierro, former policeman and private investigator shadowing, investigates the murder of "Golondrina", a beautiful young woman, occurred in a seedy hotel in downtown Bogota. Without knowing who it is, begins to understand their relationships with a motley gallery of men: a corrupt politician, connected to drug trafficking and paramilitary groups, a bullfighter cunning and good for nothing, a boxer fallen on hard times with a force so stupid as rare Lotero intellect and an insightful blind. And in the midst of this, the dark threads entangling power to everyone, and especially the poor Fierro.

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Documentary on Cali in Colombia

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A wild short made as part of a filmmaking workshop that Raúl Ruiz ran in Bogotá in October 1993.

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Faced with his imminent death from AIDS, Colombian artist Lorenzo Jaramillo looks back on his life and work through the five senses.

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Hairdressers in Cali discuss life, work, dreams, beauty, fashion, and homosexuality. The filmmaker is having a haircut too. Second installment of the crafts trilogy.

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A film about shoeshiners in the streets of Cali. A pure piece of direct cinema in the first installment of the crafts trilogy.

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The taxi drivers of Cali, both those working the day shift and those working the night shift, talk about work, customers, and violence, revealing their vision of the city, real or fantasized. Third installment of the crafts trilogy.

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Video-survey with fixed camera about the Cali people. They are asked about different topics: happiness, money, innocence, love...

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This two-part documentary series made for regional television captures a crucial moment in Cali and Ospina's relationship with its city: a crossroads where the break with the city of youth becomes inevitable and painful. The first part, Cali plane X plane, is a counterpoint of image and sound on the destruction of architectural heritage. The second, Goodbye to Cali / Ah, Goddess Kali !, brings together the opposing testimonies of local artists who have dealt with the theme of the city and the devastators who have insisted on destroying it.

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Educational documentary on North American silent comedy made with archival materials.

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Ten years after "Agarrando Pueblo", a reunion with one of its protagonists, a street fakir still doing the same show. After watching the film, he reflects on his life, his work, and his image.

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Portrait of the Colombian composer and pianist, one of his country’s most important classical musicians in the twentieth century.

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Using the unfinished film, ANGELITA Y MIGUEL ÁNGEL, by Andrés Caicedo and Carlos Mayolo, as a structuring device, friends of prolific film critic and writer Andrés Caicedo, an unforgettable figure of the group of Cali in the 1970s who left an incredible amount of texts, reflect upon his life, his work, and his suicide at the age of 25, testify to his influence in the cultural life of Colombia, and remember his strong and touching personality.

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Based on the only four surviving shots of the first Colombian silent film, MARÍA (1921), by directors Máximo Calvo (Colombia) and Alfredo del Diestro (Spain), IN SEARCH OF ‘MARIA’ combines historical research, interviews, and scenic reconstruction to rescue the memory of a lost film.

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Roberto Hurtado suffers from a rare disease that requires massive transfusions of blood from children or adolescents. His son blackmails three employees to get blood for him and they resort to unscrupulous methods to obtain it.

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Two filmmakers travel around impoverished sectors of the cities of Bogotá and Cali in search of the images of abjection needed to complete a documentary commissioned by German TV. Meanwhile, another camera captures these “vampire” filmmakers feeding off the misery of their marginal subjects.

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The vengeance of a housemaid against the family that hired her.

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A 13 minute glimpse of the Feria de Cali celebrated between Christmas and New Year… A carnival of commodity fetishism, red devils and white indians that will be recognizable to anyone who has encountered the surrealist ethnographies of Michael Taussig.

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Satirical short comprising wartime footage, purporting to be from the Soviet Film Agency and depicting a successful bomb strike on Washington.

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Documentary about the effects of the VI Panamerican Games in the city of Cali, seen from the point of view of the people that couldn't get into the stadiums.

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Experimental film inspired by Andy Warhol's 'Sleep'.

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The film adapts Jean-Paul Sartre’s short story Erostratus about a man on the verge of despair who decides to buy a gun and go out to kill at random. Shot in Los Angeles, this was Ospina’s first project at the UCLA Film School. Acto de fe (Redux) was restored from the original Kodak 16mm 4X reversal film of the 1970 version of Acto de fe. Some shots had to be replaced with outtakes from the camera original due to decay or total loss.

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An intimate portrait of the pioneering artistic collective Grupo de Cali, whose work is now considered a fundamental part of Colombia’s film history.

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A video art piece that combines citations from the filmmaker’s first films with footage shot in India. It was commissioned by Colombian visual artist José Alejandro Restrepo and took inspiration from A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments, by Roland Barthes.

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Faced with his imminent death from AIDS, Colombian artist Lorenzo Jaramillo looks back on his life and work through the five senses.

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Memories from the neighborhood theaters in Cali, spaces that each summer occupied an important place in the heart of the people. In the neighborhood theaters, among others, Mexican cinema was widely exhibited, which incorporated Cali fashions and even strongly influenced the work of various local artists.

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In an old and mysterious tropical mansion cohabit the supposed owner, a friar, a convalescent pilot, the Haitian servant, the mercenary guardian and the Machiche, a mature and dominant female. A young model arrives there to unleash all kinds of passions.

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Based on the only four surviving shots of the first Colombian silent film, MARÍA (1921), by directors Máximo Calvo (Colombia) and Alfredo del Diestro (Spain), IN SEARCH OF ‘MARIA’ combines historical research, interviews, and scenic reconstruction to rescue the memory of a lost film.

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August 6, 1956 during the military dictatorship of Rojas Pinilla. A military convoy loaded with dynamite explodes in the center of Cali, destroying a good part of the traditional buildings of the city and exposing the roots of some houses that for years had kept the secret stories of their inhabitants.

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Experimental film inspired by Andy Warhol's 'Sleep'.

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The taxi drivers of Cali, both those working the day shift and those working the night shift, talk about work, customers, and violence, revealing their vision of the city, real or fantasized. Third installment of the crafts trilogy.

Open details →

Video-survey with fixed camera about the Cali people. They are asked about different topics: happiness, money, innocence, love...

Open details →

This two-part documentary series made for regional television captures a crucial moment in Cali and Ospina's relationship with its city: a crossroads where the break with the city of youth becomes inevitable and painful. The first part, Cali plane X plane, is a counterpoint of image and sound on the destruction of architectural heritage. The second, Goodbye to Cali / Ah, Goddess Kali !, brings together the opposing testimonies of local artists who have dealt with the theme of the city and the devastators who have insisted on destroying it.

Open details →

Using the unfinished film, ANGELITA Y MIGUEL ÁNGEL, by Andrés Caicedo and Carlos Mayolo, as a structuring device, friends of prolific film critic and writer Andrés Caicedo, an unforgettable figure of the group of Cali in the 1970s who left an incredible amount of texts, reflect upon his life, his work, and his suicide at the age of 25, testify to his influence in the cultural life of Colombia, and remember his strong and touching personality.

Open details →

Roberto Hurtado suffers from a rare disease that requires massive transfusions of blood from children or adolescents. His son blackmails three employees to get blood for him and they resort to unscrupulous methods to obtain it.

Open details →

Two filmmakers travel around impoverished sectors of the cities of Bogotá and Cali in search of the images of abjection needed to complete a documentary commissioned by German TV. Meanwhile, another camera captures these “vampire” filmmakers feeding off the misery of their marginal subjects.

Open details →

The vengeance of a housemaid against the family that hired her.

Open details →

Documentary about the effects of the VI Panamerican Games in the city of Cali, seen from the point of view of the people that couldn't get into the stadiums.

Open details →

The film adapts Jean-Paul Sartre’s short story Erostratus about a man on the verge of despair who decides to buy a gun and go out to kill at random. Shot in Los Angeles, this was Ospina’s first project at the UCLA Film School. Acto de fe (Redux) was restored from the original Kodak 16mm 4X reversal film of the 1970 version of Acto de fe. Some shots had to be replaced with outtakes from the camera original due to decay or total loss.

Open details →