Edition 2017

Amazona

What makes someone a good mother? After the tragic death of her eldest daughter, Val left her kids and family behind and escaped into the Colombian jungle to search for her identity.

Clare Weiskopf, the director of this film, was 11 years old at the time and couldn’t understand what her mother was looking for. Thirty years later, when she becomes pregnant, she decides to confront her mother, heal the wounds of the past and try to define motherhood on her own terms. She visits Val in her heavenly habitat in the Amazon region of Colombia and films her weaving bracelets in her timber hut, driving her moped to the market and cooking fish on a wood-burning stove.

Why did Val hit the road when her two children needed her so badly? This is a fascinating tug of war between freedom and responsibility – with all the guilt and sacrifice they entail. Should you follow the accepted course, act selflessly and devote yourself to your children, or is your own life the most important in the end?

Theme:

EnvironmentWomen

Clare Weiskopf

Clare Weiskopf is a filmmaker and journalist who has been working for more than twenty years on various social subjects, ranging from the armed conflict in Colombia and sexual violence as a weapon of war to the spread of cumbia in Latin America and Europe. Her first film Amazona premiered at IDFA, was the opening film of DocsBarcelona, was distributed in 11 countries, was nominated for the Fénix Awards and the Goya Awards and won three Colombian Academy Awards. She was twice winner of Colombia’s National Journalism Award. She was selected for IDFAcademy, Dok.Incubator, GoodPitch and Campus Latino, and her projects have been supported by Ibermedia, Sundance, Catapult, IDFA BerthaFund, Chicken & Egg, Tribeca, Colombian Film Fund-Proimagenes and the Romanian Film Centre. She has directed several documentaries and documentary series for television channels. She is a founding member of Casatarantula. Clare has been a film teacher at several universities and is often invited as a juror for film funds.

Clare-Weiskopf_Alis

Technical details

Year:

2016

Credits

Direction
Clare Weiskopf
Sound
Nicolas Van Hemelryck
Production
Nicolas Van Hemelryck
Edition
Gustavo Vasco
Music
Camilo Sanabria
Screenwriter
Clare Weiskopf, Gustavo Vasco, Nicolas Van Hemelryck

Screening times

Awards