The Colors of the Mountain

Carlos César Arbeláez

Poetic portrait of life in a mountain village in Colombia, where guerrilla fighters and paramilitary forces spread death and destruction among the local population. Nine-year-old Manuel and his friends love to play football. When, one day, a mine explodes next to their football ground, carefree playing is a thing of the past.
Every day, Manuel plays football and he dreams of becoming a great goalkeeper. His father offers him a new ball for his birthday and, for a while it seems as if his dream will be fulfilled. When the ball accidentally ends up in a minefield, Manuel and his fiends do all they can to get it back. Meanwhile, more and more stories circulate of assassinated local residents, and one by one Manuel’s friends leave the village. Even their idealistic schoolmistress is forced to make a choice.The inaccessible football becomes a symbol of their everyday lives and their shattered dreams.The Colors of the Mountains highlights, through the eyes of a child, the impossible situation in which the inhabitants of remote mountain areas in Colombia find themselves. If the village people choose the side of the guerrilla, they will be killed by the paramilitary troops; in the opposite case, they will be liquidated by the guerrilla fighters. 

Credits

Director
Carlos César Arbeláez
Year
2010
Country of production
Panama, Colombia
Type
Fiction
Duration
90 minutes
Spoken language
Spanish
Subtitles
EN
Production company
El BUS Producciones
World Sales
uMedia France