El León

The verses of poet León de Greiff hover over archival images of the grand auditorium that bears his name at the National University of Colombia. Declared a National Monument, this venue has been one of the country’s cultural and academic emblems. However, the disturbing images recovered here seek to recount, if not evoke, one of the most tragic periods in its history. In the 1980s and 1990s, teachers and students linked to left-wing social and political movements were disappeared and murdered by paramilitaries and the state. The cloisters were turned into a war zone and its great cultural stage into a funeral home. Hundreds of students mourned the murdered professors Alberto Alava, Mauricio Umaña and Jesús Antonio Bejarano right there. The images that inhabit the space float like ghosts; they speak to us from that time about something terrible that is happening and has happened there. However, from the tragedy emerges a collective roar that overflows the auditorium and fills the campus’s central plaza. They shout: “Not a minute of silence!”

Diana Bustamante is a Colombian film producer, director and programmer who played a key role in the internationalisation of Colombian and Latin American cinema. She served as artistic director of the Cartagena International Film Festival from 2014 to 2019. She has produced films including La Tierra y la Sombra, winner of the Caméra d’Or at Cannes 2015, and Memoria, Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival 2021. In 2022, she made her directorial debut with the documentary Nuestra Película, which premiered at DOCNYC and received a Special Jury Mention at the Bilbao ZINEBI Festival.

Director Diana Bustamante. Screenplay Diana Bustamante. Editing Felipe Guerrero. Music Jabbath Roa. Sound Design Carlos Garcia. Producers Diana Bustamante, Yeily Antonio. Production company Burning (Bogotá, Colombia).

Films: 2022: Nuestra Película. 2026: El León.