30. Film Festival della Lessinia
Bosco Chiesanuova (Italia)
23 August - 1 September 2024

Italian premiere

Yeison is only eleven years old, yet lives alone in the mountains of Colombia, hunting and feeding on small animals. The boy jealously guards the few meagre things collected at home, as if he were waiting for someone to return from one moment to the next: perhaps his family members, who seem to have disappeared, leaving their activities suspended. One day, however, while Yeison is in the woods, an armed man arrives at the house and, believing it uninhabited, takes up residence there. The boy will do everything to chase away the unwanted guest, but he will not be able to prevent him from first discovering his secret: in the garden behind the house, sheltered under the trees, three tombs are dug. With economy of words and refinement of images, Destierra circumscribes the solitude and pain of its young protagonist against the backdrop of woods and mountains, silent witnesses to a history of violence that has tormented these lands for too many years, generating ghosts in flesh and blood.

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  Juan David Mejía Vásquez

  Juan David Mejía Vásquez is a Colombian director, screenwriter and teacher. He graduated in scriptwriting for Cinema and Television at the University of Antioquia and is the founder and director of the Festival Internacional Cine en la Isla. With the collective K-minantes he made several short films and training workshops in Columbia, Ecuador and Peru.