Colombian-Canadian filmmaker Juan Andrés Arango returns to options with “The place the River Begins,” a Colombian-set drama that follows a younger, widowed Emberá mom and her daughter as they go away a violent Bogotá neighbourhood and try to achieve the Andágueda River, the jungle panorama they as soon as referred to as residence.
The movie marks Arango’s first time centring of an Indigenous feminine protagonist and continues his exploration of migration, marginalisation and the blurred line between reminiscence and current actuality, themes which have formed his work since “La Playa DC” (Un Sure Regard, Cannes 2012) and “X500” (TIFF 2016).
Shot throughout Bogotá, Medellín, Quibdó and deep into the Chocó rainforest, “The place the River Begins” combines social realism with a robust sensory dimension, drawing on Emberá cosmologies, the assumption of the jungle as choose and the expertise of communities displaced by Colombia’s lengthy battle.
Working with non-professional actors, the director forged Girleza Duave Cerezo from the Emberá Dobidá group as Yajaira, and Juan David Junca Linares as Jhon, a teenage gang member who joins the journey after a confrontation leaves Yajaira’s nephew lifeless. The movie follows the characters’ motion from cramped city peripheries to a rainforest marked by loss, armed teams and erasure; an all too actual trajectory that mirrors the displacement of many Indigenous communities and the disappearance of villages throughout Colombia’s Pacific coast.
“This return is a posh and non-linear course of, for the reason that violence has mutated and continues to exist in lots of of those territories, and since the battle has remodeled these areas, distancing them from the locations of reminiscence that their former inhabitants carry inside themselves. This seek for the areas of our roots in a rustic remodeled by battle is my important motivation for telling this story.” the director instructed Selection.
Produced by Paola Pérez Nieto of Inercia Películas, with co-production companions Midi La Nuit (Canada) and Stær (Norway), the movie collected substantial worldwide help throughout growth. It participated within the Cinéfondation Workshop, Sørfond Pitching Discussion board, Cine Qua Non Lab, BAM Tales and San Sebastián’s Co-Manufacturing Discussion board, the place it gained the Dale! Award.
Backing consists of SODEC, Telefilm Canada, Sørfond, CALQ, the FDC manufacturing fund, and regional help from the Cali metropolis authorities. The manufacturing wrapped a two-month shoot in July 2025. “Juan Andrés and I first met on his debut characteristic, ‘La Playa DC,’ the place I labored as the road producer. Since then, we’ve maintained a artistic relationship.” mentioned Perez Nieto. “Nonetheless, it wasn’t till 2019, after I shifted absolutely into producing by means of Inercia Películas and he started growing this profoundly female movie, that he noticed me as the correct individual to provide his undertaking.”
Presenting at Ventana Sur’s rough-cut Primer Corte, the workforce is searching for a global gross sales agent, distributors in key territories and pageant programmers, alongside companions to shut the remaining financing on a $2.2 million funds.
Selection spoke with Arango concerning the movie’s political and cultural context, his work with Emberá collaborators, and the way the edit is shaping the emotional backbone of the story.
The movie ties territorial displacement to a extra inward exile — lack of voice, of group, of religious grounding. How early did this twin construction emerge in your writing?
Juan Andrés Arango: “The place the River Begins” needs to discover the return that 1000’s of Colombians have progressively begun to make after the peace agreements with the paramilitary teams and the FARC allowed them to return to the territories they have been compelled to desert due to the battle. This return is a posh and non-linear course of, for the reason that violence has mutated and continues to exist in lots of of those territories, and since the battle has remodeled these areas, distancing them from the locations of reminiscence that their former inhabitants carry inside themselves. This seek for the areas of our roots in a rustic remodeled by battle is my important motivation for telling this story.
A number of scenes hinge on Yajaira sensing hazard or “listening to” the jungle. How did you’re employed with the group to depict religious data with out exoticising it?
The movie’s script was impressed by a number of years of conversations with Embera youth residing in Colombia’s important cities. One recurring aspect in these conversations was the eager for the area of the rainforest and the way it remained current within the goals and creativeness of Embera adolescents within the metropolis. The movie depicts this presence of the jungle, which at moments takes the place of town, suggesting the area it occupies throughout the protagonist. The script went by means of completely different variations that have been shared with members of the Embera group with a view to refine the way in which the jungle’s religious presence is portrayed and to current the Embera group in a respectful means.
You’ve persistently used non-professional actors. What particular processes did performing coach Catalina Arroyave and also you construct to assist Girleza Duave Cerezo entry Yajaira’s inside world?
Girleza, or Anyela as she prefers to be referred to as, has a private historical past and an expressive essence which are very near these of the character Yajaira. The work with Catalina centered on collectively discovering the expressive paths particular to her persona in order that she might convey to the opposite actors and to the digicam the power we already knew she possessed.
The movie touches instantly on paramilitary displacement, a subject deeply linked to land restitution debates in Colombia. How did you stability political precision with the movie’s dream-memory tone?
My intention with the movie is to discover battle, displacement, and land restitution with out ever exposing them explicitly or taking a political stance towards them, however moderately by giving them the position of a backdrop—an omnipresent pressure that influences the characters’ on a regular basis lives. This comes from my curiosity as a filmmaker in exploring battle not by means of express violence, however by means of the psychological penalties that a long time of battle have left in us, and the way we should study to coexist with these penalties with a view to transfer ahead.
The movie avoids simple redemption arcs. Was it at all times clear to you that forgiveness on this story could be conditional, ambiguous, and rooted in place moderately than private transformation?
The movie goals to be as honest as doable to the character of Yajaira. For that reason, it doesn’t current a transparent redemption or an ending by which all of the threads of the story are resolved, however moderately a route of motion. By the story, I hope to carry the viewer nearer to the complicated and harsh actuality confronted by younger Embera individuals within the cities, but additionally to the good human and cultural energy they possess. I consider that it’s on this resilient energy the place the movie’s hope resides.
You shot from Bogotá to the Chocó rainforest with native communities supporting the manufacturing. What agreements or collaborative constructions have been important for filming respectfully?
The movie is the results of three years of joint work with Embera communities positioned within the Chocó rainforest and in Bogotá. This work was coordinated by Nury Dumaza, the undertaking’s researcher, who’s a member of the group. Collectively together with her, we approached the group leaders and elders to current the undertaking’s preliminary thought in addition to its growth by means of the completely different variations of the script. They contributed – and proceed to contribute – their data and steerage, with out which it might have been unimaginable to hold out the undertaking. On a sensible stage, the communities took half within the movie’s manufacturing at each stage, with members taking part within the manufacturing and directing groups, performing, meals preparation, transportation, and steerage throughout the territory.
As you assemble the primary minimize with editor Xi Feng, what has shocked you most, any emotional through-lines that solely arose within the edit?
I feel what shocked me probably the most throughout the enhancing course of with Xi was the expressive pressure with which the jungle emerged within the movie. We had at all times been conscious of its significance within the story, however taking pictures within the rainforest is a bit like swimming in a river – you change into so absorbed within the present that it’s troublesome to research something rationally. Rediscovering the jungle within the footage was due to this fact a really emotional shock.
You name this your most private movie. Has making it shifted the route of your subsequent undertaking, by way of scale, geography, or thematic issues?
I don’t assume there’s a change of route in my work as a director, however moderately a deepening of the themes of id, transformation and belonging that fascinate me. I consider that “The place the River Begins” allowed me to method these themes from a extra intimate and religious perspective, one that can proceed to develop in my future movies.
The rest you want to say…
This movie is the results of passionate work carried out beneath troublesome taking pictures circumstances by individuals from a wide range of backgrounds and cultures. I consider that it’s exactly the truth that we’re completely different, but need to talk one thing important collectively, that provides energy to the method and shapes this movie’s ultimate end result.
