Three movies featured at Columbian film festival

JAKARTA (JP): The Embassy of the Republic of Colombia, with the collaboration of the H. Usmar Ismail Film Center, is presenting the Columbian Film Festival 2000.

The Festival features three different Colombian movies on three different dates at the film center on Jl. Rasuna Said, South Jakarta. The first film, Aguilas no Cazan Moscas (Eagles Do Not Hunt Flies), directed by Sergio Cabrera, was shown on Monday.

La Dueda (The Debt), directed by Manuel Jose Alvarez and Nicolas Buenaventura, will be the second in line, playing on Thursday, June 29.

Edipo Alcalde (Oedipus Maire), will be playing on Tuesday, July 4, directed by Jorge Ali Triana.

The main character in Aquilas no Cazan Moscas, is Vladimir Oquendo, an army cadet. He receives news that the man he thought was his father is in fact not his father at all. Consequently, he decides to return to his home village to try and find out who his real father is. Once back home, his search leads him to the only butcher in town, who he suspects by way of deduction, might be his real father. He learns of a duel between the butcher and Professor Albarracin, who was his teacher at primary school. But all he discovers about this is that it was "a matter of Honor."

The story in La Dueda takes place in a little Latin American town called El Paraiso (the Paradise). The plot begins with the death of Ali Ibrhim Maria de Los Altos Pozos, best known in town as the Turkish profiteer, who has been poisoned. While in tremendous pain, the Turk seeks help among his neighbors, but everybody refuses to help him. After some agonizing suffering, and rejection by the people around him, he dies on the street. Even though everyone knows that they acted immorally, the Turk's death brings a sense of relief to the debtors.

An uncontrollable struggle arises in the town as some people look for the murderer(s). Just when everything is calming down, however, another death occurs.

The Latin writer and author of 100 Years in Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, once said that the perfect plot for a detective story is found in Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, in which the detective investigating the case turns out to be the villain. And in which the investigations lead cleverly and inexorably to the man who is making them.

The script for the film Oedipus Maire takes Sophocles' plot and sets it in a village in the high Andean Mountains of Colombia. Here Sophocles' plague of Thebes is replaced by a plague of generalized violence. Showing how, as in the ancient story, noone is innocent in real life.

All movies are open to the public and will begin at 7 p.m. (Boy)