Zafari

Why will your students love Zafari?
Because its blend of dark humor and claustrophobic tension draws students into Venezuela’s crisis without didacticism, offering an unforgettable conversation starter about resilience and the human cost of systemic failure. Because it’s the highly anticipated new film from director Mariana Rondón and producer Marité Ugás, the team behind Bad Hair (Pelo Malo)—one of the most talked-about and critically acclaimed Latin American films of the XXI century. And because its recognition on the global festival circuit attests to the film’s artistic strength and cross-border relevance.

Zafari, directed by acclaimed Venezuelan filmmaker Mariana Rondón, is a bold and unsettling exploration of social fracture, power, and survival in contemporary Latin America. Celebrated at major international film festivals, the film marks Rondón’s return to politically charged storytelling following her Golden Shell–winning Bad Hair (Pelo Malo) at the San Sebastián Film Festival. Blending social realism with fable and allegory, Zafari offers a stark portrait of life amid systemic collapse.

Set around a small, depopulated urban zoo, the arrival of the hippopotamus Zafari becomes a moment of shared fascination for neighbors from opposing social classes. From the windows of their once-luxurious but now decaying high-rise, Ana, Edgar, and their son Bruno observe the spectacle from a distance that mirrors their growing isolation. As shortages of food, water, and electricity intensify, the family is forced to confront increasingly dire choices: scavenging for survival or abandoning their home altogether. Ana’s nocturnal searches through abandoned apartments—punctuated by unsettling sounds and darkened corridors—render domestic space a site of fear and moral uncertainty.

Through this claustrophobic microcosm, Rondón constructs a powerful political allegory of inequality, hunger, and forced displacement. In a world where human beings starve, the well-fed hippopotamus emerges as a disturbing symbol of distorted abundance. Zafari offers rich material for the exploration of Latin American cinema, political allegory, migration studies, and the cinematic representation of social crisis in post-collapse societies.