Silent Witnesses tells the impossible love story between Efraín and Alicia during Colombia’s first half of the 20th century. Based on remnants of the few Colombian silent films from 1922-1937 that have withstood the test of time, and taking several key Colombian novels as a reference, this new imaginary story pays homage to this little-known found cinema.
What begins as a melodrama, in which Efraín falls in love with Alicia, engaged to Uribe, a powerful and vengeful industrialist, turns into a journey into the heart of the jungle, in which Efraín will witness the humiliating living conditions of the peasants of southern Colombia and the genesis of an armed rebellion.
Silent Witnesses is the posthumous work from one of the most prolific filmmakers in the Latin American cinematic and documentary tradition, Luis Ospina. Heir to his peers, Ospina entrusted this project to Jerónimo Atehortúa, whose new voice and political commitment are harbingers of a promising future.
