Cinema Club
Movies in Colombia
Since its early beginnings Colombia was a country with a vocation for the cinematic arts. The passion for making movies has been the strongest motivator to directors and producers, stronger than the economic difficulties they have faced to make them.
In addition to the beauty and diversity of the Colombian scenery the country counts with quality producing directors that manage great productions with very low budgets.
The first film was projected in Colombia in 1895, only two years after the creation of the first movie camera. The Di Domenico brothers, owners of the Olympia Theatre, were the first to build a film salon dedicated exclusively to the exhibition of films and helped with the production of “The 15th of October Drama” in 1915, a documental that chronicled the assassination of General Rafael Uribe Uribe.
The first long running movies with sound were produced and premiered during the earlier part of the 1940’s; “Flowers of Valle (1941), “There at the Sugar Mill” (1943) “Bambucos & Hearts” (1945) and the Gentle Winds of Bogota” (1945) are but a few of them. Faced with a lack of commercial opportunities and government support the companies failed and it was not until the Nineteen fifties that new producers appeared poised to take risks with new titles.
In the last few years we have seen a growing number of new productions, with as many as 13 during 2008, a number never seen before. The King, Dreaming Does Not Cost Anything, Travel Paradise, Satan, Bluff, among others, are some of the films best remembered. The Colombian Dream and PVC-1 the most experimental technically and narratively. Mary Full Of Grace and At the End Of The Spectrum.
