Exactly five years ago, on November 30, 2016, the Colombian Congress unanimously approved the peace agreement between the State and the guerrillas of the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), in a session marked by tension and emotion. Thirty-six opposition deputies were absent, and 130 present said “yes” to a document that had been rewritten and retouched after being rejected in the referendum on October 2, 2016.
The approval marked the end of a conflict that left more than 220,000 dead and caused 8 million internal displacements. The agreement determined the disarmament of the guerrillas, the creation of a special peace court and the reintegration of former combatants into society, in addition to agrarian reform and reparation for the victims. Although still in the implementation phase, truncated by a government hostile to its application, the treaty meant a drop in homicides in the country and an end to the terrorist attacks that brought so much suffering to the country.
The Negotiation (2018)
The documentary by Margarita Martínez is an important record of how action was taken to reverse the result of the referendum on October 2, 2016, when the “no” to the peace agreement was victorious. The two parties sat down to negotiate amendments and hastily rewrite articles for the document to be approved by Congress. The film records the tension and the state of suspense that the country experienced in those days. Former President Álvaro Uribe, who had led the campaign against the document, refused to give interviews for the film and ended up threatening to censure it.
The Witness (2018)
The documentary follows Colombia’s best-known photographer, Jesús Abad Colorado, as he travels through war-torn places. He himself is a victim of the conflict, his grandfather and uncle were murdered _the second, beheaded_, and the rest of his family had to move from the countryside to the city. Cousins and friends are still missing today. In the midst of so much pain, however, Abad manages to find sweetness, like that of the girl who looks at the world through the hole a bullet made in the window of her house, or that of a newlywed couple who get married in a church in ruins. village completely razed. His 25-year work photographing the conflict received the Gabo Award’s Recognition for Excellence in 2019.
The Silence of the Rifles (2017)
Natalia Orozco’s documentary is noisy. To expose the difficulty involved in the negotiations for the end of the conflict, he emphasizes the pain of living in a country where terrorist attacks, explosions and shootings were part of everyday life. It is curious to see, with today’s eyes, former guerrillas like Iván Márquez, who participated in the agreement and then returned to the path of violence, saying “that the war should not have happened”. On the other hand, advances in the treaty can be felt when another former leader, Pedro Catatumbo, is heard saying: “Every time we got up from the conversation table, we said that we would see each other again after five thousand deaths”. Catatumbo left arms for politics and is now a senator.
Ciro and Me (2018)
A poetic and painful approach to the conflict, “Ciro y Yo” tells the story of Ciro Galindo, born in 1952 in La Macarena, from where he had to move with his wife and three children, one of whom was kidnapped. His life and that of his family were marked by the violence provoked by all the characters in the conflict: guerrillas, paramilitaries, army. Galindo was a forest watchman in the region of Caño Cristales, where a famous river of different colors flows that once made the region a tourist spot, before it was taken by war. Directed by Miguel Salazar.
To End a War
British filmmaker Marc Silver’s focus is on the end of the war. Didactic in presenting the subject to a foreign audience, the documentary brings valuable backstage of the 10th. FARC Conference, held in 2016 in Llanos del Yarí. The event marked the acceptance, by the common guerrillas, of the peace process. These were days of celebration and interaction between combatants from different fronts. Silver also focuses on the movement to resist the agreement, represented by the campaign carried out by former president Álvaro Uribe for the victory of the “no” in the referendum.
