Birds of Passage

Directors: Ciro Guerra & Cristina Gallego

Country/Distributor: Colombia/Denmark/Mexico, The Orchard

Opening: February 13

DESPITE THE LEAP TO A LARGER PRODUCTION scale and to a multi-character narrative, can be seen as an extension of the modes, themes, and spaces that characterized the previous works of Colombian filmmaker Ciro Guerra, who is joined by his longtime producer, Cristina Gallego, as codirector. As in (2009), the Guajira Desert being the luxurious rococo mansion where an Indian turned drug lord orders killings and alienates himself from his family and his community. And as in (2015), the filmmakers explore the perils of exposing the indigenous cultures of Latin America to Western interests, a critique of colonialism driven home through the portrayal of old rituals and traditions that are subject to extinction in a globalized world, as with the richly codified oral mediation between tribes in .