Over the past decades, eight million Colombians have been forcibly displaced by the ongoing armed conflict in their country. Several communities are still fighting to regain their land. In La Bonga, named after the former village, we follow one of these groups on their journey through the jungle, as they reminisce and express their hopes of finding traces of their former lives.
The stories, the path and the land are the only things left, remarks a woman traveling with former residents to the site of their vanished village. The old playground is now a cleared section of rainforest; the school is an overgrown ruin.
They become emotional as they share memories. As evening falls, a celebration erupts in honor of La Bonga. But can this place ever be what it once was? The film's calm pace creates room to pause and reflect on such questions, giving lives that have faded into the past a chance to briefly return.
Stills
Dead Angle is a multi-year focus program that uses documentary cinema to reveal what remains outside our direct field of vision. This year, it explores the act of finding common ground: how people come together through solidarity, collective resistance, community and public space.
Dead Angle is supported by Vfonds
