Horizonte

“Hay futuro si hay verdad” (there is a future if there is truth) reads the motto of the Final Report by the Colombian Truth Commission issued in 2022. In the aftermath of a brutal conflict spanning more than five decades and leaving hundreds of thousands dead, disappeared, and wounded, the country still struggles to find its way to lasting peace. Films can make a meaningful contribution to that cherished goal. Horizonte does it with a deeply felt cinematic statement, by taking the audience on a harrowing journey.

Paulina García — also at the Festival with Beloved Tropic — stars as Inés, mother of Basilio (Claudio Cataño), who has been missing for a long time and has finally returned home to the Colombian countryside to find her. But the pair are actually dead, their souls tied to the many stories they left behind. When they decide to travel through a war-torn landscape to comprehend what their fate might mean, it becomes painfully clear that only through great sacrifice will they achieve the redemption they long for.

Writer-director César Augusto Acevedo — whose 2015 film Land and Shade won the Caméra d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival — doubles down on the poetics of eerie landscapes, fire, shadows, and precisely orchestrated sounds. The music by Harry Allouche vividly resonates with chaos, ache, and hope, propelling the characters to face their horror and, hopefully, escape a vicious cycle of violence. Facing truth may break us, or set us free.

DIANA CADAVID