Colombian Film on Disappeared Premieres at Karlovy Vary
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- "Five Years, Four Months" becomes the first Colombian film to compete in the Crystal Globe Competition at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, co-directed by Juan Miguel Gelacio and Esteban Hoyos García.
- The film follows Martha and Sandra, mothers searching for sons lost in Colombia's armed conflict, with professional actors Jenny Nava and Carmiña Martinez in the leads and real-life searching mothers cast in supporting roles.
- Director Hoyos García says there are 120,000 missing people in Colombia and frames the film around "delayed mourning" — the grief of families who cannot bury their dead because bodies have never been recovered.
- President-elect Abelardo de la Espriella Otero, set to take office in early August, plans to suspend the landmark 2016 Peace Agreement with FARC-EP rebels and defund initiatives that search for the disappeared, Hoyos García says.
- The director cites more than 7,000 innocent civilians killed by the military during Álvaro Uribe's 2002–2010 presidency — passed off as guerrilla fighters — as the kind of violence he fears returning.
- The project began under Colombia's first left-wing president, Gustavo Petro Urrego, with hopes the film would keep memory of the conflict alive; Hoyos García now calls the film "even more urgent" as Colombia shifts right.
Why it matters: A film centering Colombia's 120,000 disappeared debuts at a major international stage as the incoming government moves to suspend the 2016 peace deal and defund search initiatives. For the mothers who've organized through informal groups like Mafapo and Corocoras del Llano, the political shift threatens to freeze any chance of closure — while paradoxically sharpening the film's international profile.
