Filmmaker Camilo Restrepo’s income was so low that he had to sell his camera to pay for groceries. He saw the uncertainties of his personal life reflected in the fate of his native Colombia. It seemed that his country might become the next target of American troops, who had previously abducted the president of Venezuela and seized control of its economy. Restrepo wanted to voice a counter-narrative. But what could he do without a budget or a camera? He decided to take something back from the Americans who were laying claim to his country.
So Restrepo decided to steal Daring the Darién, a 1961 promotional film in which automaker General Motors puts three Chevrolet Corvairs to the test by having them cross the Darién Gap, the stretch of impenetrable rainforest on the Panama–Colombia border that marks the endpoint of the Pan-American Highway. In the past, this was where the advance of “American progress” came to a halt. But as Restrepo shows in his film, traffic is now moving in the opposite direction. And the contrast is stark between the migrants heading north and the motorized conquerors moving south.
