Portal U de A

Four short films made by students at the UdeA School of Communications were accepted into the Short Film Corner competition that runs in parallel with the 69th annual Cannes Film Festival to be held from May 11-22, 2016.

Pictured: Aura, one of the characters of the short film 1969.

The short films that will compete in the Short Film Corner are:

1969

The film was made by Esteban Lopera-Casas, a Multimedia and Audiovisual Communication student, and Sara Molina-Maya, who graduated with a degree in journalism from Universidad de Antioquia.

The story takes place in Santa Rosa de Osos, a village nestled in the cold mountains of the department of Antioquia, Colombia, and revolves around a Colombian peasant family and the arrival of the first man on the moon.

En Vuelo (In Flight)

This short film made by John Jairo Angulo, a student of Multimedia and Audiovisual Communication, makes use of rotoscoping techniques. “I made this film entirely on my own and with my own resources. It has hardly been a month since filming ended and it has already been selected to participate in several international film festivals, which gives me great satisfaction,” Angulo said. 

The film depicts the story of a family banished from their land by an illegal armed group. The story is told through the eyes of a little girl who perceives the traumatic experience as a fantasy adventure. Angulo has not stopped producing and he is currently finishing up the script for a new animated short film as well as the screenplay for a feature film entitled “Bullerengue”.

En Busca de Aire (Looking for Air)

This short film was produced by Mauricio Maldonado and Jenny David-Piedrahíta, two students of Multimedia and Audiovisual Communication at the UdeA School of Communications.

The film is set in a near future where freedom is forbidden, children are taken away from their families and sent to concentration camps at their city’s periphery and made to serve a strict military regime. Once this area falls under siege a teenager is forced to leave behind everything he loves in the hopes of escaping war.

The film, which has been selected to screen at the Short Film Corner, has also been screened in several film festivals both nationally and abroad including the Cartagena International Film Festival (FICCI), the Bogotá Short Film Festival (Bogoshorts), and the Corto Circuito Latino Shorts Film Festival of New York.   

“Friends are a person's greatest assets,” says Jenny David. A position shared by Mauricio Maldonado, who says that “all this has been made possible thanks to the support of friends and colleagues”.  Although the film’s original budget was set at 63 million pesos (about 60,000 USD) they only had 5 million to make it. However, the film was made possible in part with donations from the School of Communications, as well as friends, alumni and colleagues who joined the project. VITA, a local 3D animation and visual effects studio donated special effects services for the project. 

Acéfalos (Headless)

This short film is student Andrés Arias’ thesis film. The story takes place in the city of Medellín, Colombia, and revolves around two lonely people trying to leave a troubled past behind. Both have much in common and share many tastes and interests, so they will find each other eventually.

The production was funded by Rara Colectivo - a film production company based in Medellín that Arias co founded - along with a grant from the Medellín Mayor's Office. Clap Studios, a local audio post-production company was hired to create the sound effects.

Arias stressed that much of the success of film works lies in the good relationships and supportive atmosphere existing between local filmmakers. “At Rara Colectivo we believe in teamwork, we value our work and the work of others,” he said.

The short film will debut at Cannes and then it will be sent for screening at several film festivals worldwide.

The students will head to Cannes in mid-May in order to present their works and participate in variety of activities at the Cannes Film Festival.

This is not the first time that a UdeA student heads for Cannes. In 2013, a team of UdeA graduates including Juan Sebastián Mesa, Alexander Arbeláez and José Manuel Duque, competed in Cannes with the short film “Kalashnikov”, and in 2015, students Catalina Vásquez, Sebastián Quintero y David Castaño also competed with Islas, an animated short film. In 2014, Simón Mesa, who graduated from the UdeA School of Communications, was awarded the Palm d’Or award for his film Leidi. 

Ernesto Correa, a professor of the Multimedia and Audiovisual Communication undergraduate program at Universidad de Antioquia, says that such remarkable achievements haven’t happened by chance. “Undoubtedly, the program provides students with the skills and abilities required to succeed in the audiovisual field and make remarkable films,” he said.   

This position is shared by Juan Sebastián Mesa, a School of Communications graduate and director of the short film “Los Nadie”, who says that in addition to the comprehensive training he received as a student of the Multimedia and Audiovisual Communication program he also had the opportunity to access a wide range of academic resources that played an important role in his training as a filmmaker. “Having ongoing support and advice from the faculty as well as access to a variety of equipment and resources became an essential part of my training,” Mesa said referring to the quality and academic approach of this undergraduate program at the UdeA School of Communications.