The Film Justifies the Means The Film Justifies the Means The Film Justifies the Means The Film Justifies the Means
  • Rencontres du Cinéma Latino Américain

    Best Documentary, Audience Award, Jury Award
  • SANFICI Santander International Independent Film Festival

    Best Domestic Feature
  • Colombian Film Festival in Buenos Aires

    Best Colombian Feature
  • Macondo Awards

    Best Documentary, Best Editing
  • Cali International Film Festival

    Jury Special Mention
  • Latino-American Film Festival of Trieste

    Jury Special Prize
  • LASA Film Festival

    Honorable Mention
  • FICVIÑA Viña del Mar Int'l Film Festival

  • Villa del Cine

    Best First Film
Pricing
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Spanish with English subtitles

With Marta Rodríguez, Carlos Álvarez, Carlos Sánchez

Inside our dark editing rooms, we unearth images filmed by a generation of filmmakers who dared to capture the raw, unfiltered reality of a country in conflict. These visuals, once buried by time, reveal a society fractured by war and unrest, preserving the voices and experiences of those on the front lines. Five decades later, as we painstakingly recover and restore these fragments of history, we confront the enduring power of cinema as a witness to trauma and resistance.

Directed by Juan Jacobo del Castillo, The Film Justifies the Means offers more than a window into the past—it is an interrogation of the ways collective memory is shaped, contested, and revived. Through this lens, we invite audiences to explore the convergence of archival research, political commentary, and the filmmaker’s art in preserving a cinematic legacy that refuses to fade.

Press

“The title The Film Justifies the Means responds to what that generation preached: in the midst of adversity, lack of budget or political pressure they made films no matter if they are not technically perfect.”El Tiempo (Colombia)

“The film that reconstructs part of the history of social and political cinema in Colombia.”Infobae Colombia

“Juan Jacobo del Castillo's debut feature film, revolves around these three filmmakers, architects of an obscure and little documented chapter in the history of Colombian cinema: the political documentary.” – André Didyme-Dôme, Rolling Stone en Español

About the Director

Juan Jacobo del Castillo is a historian turned filmmaker, specializing in Creative Documentary from Argentina and earning a Master’s in Documentary Film from ENAC, Mexico. As part of the Colombian collective Digna Rabia, he’s engaged in cultural management and documentary production, notably Abriendo el surco (2015).

His academic pursuits intertwine cinema and contemporary history, reflected in co-editing Expanded Borders (2015) and participation in international conferences. His directorial debut, The Film Justifies the Means (El film justifica los medios), delves into Colombia’s early political cinema, garnering accolades at festivals like FICVIÑA and FICCALI. Del Castillo’s short documentaries have also gained recognition at esteemed events. Currently, he edits documentaries in Mexico and Colombia, recently contributing to projects like La fuga (2021) and Las colonias (2022).

Notes on Film

“This film is a tribute and a critical reactivation of the first era of independent documentary cinema in Colombia. Making films about cinema, preserving, restoring, and experimenting with archives is our way of critically contributing to Colombian memory and audiovisual heritage. These films longed to transform reality; We have seen them, and we believe that their images can still survive beyond the screen.”

Juan Jacobo del Castillo, director