Rá, Culebro, Sere, Winny and Nano. They are the names of the protagonists of ‘The Kings of the World’, five boys from the streets of Medellín who embark on an unforgettable journey in search of the promised land. The youngest is 12 years old and the oldest is 19. The excuse for their odyssey, some old deeds to some land inherited by one of them. After receiving a letter from the Colombian government’s land restitution office, notifying the return of the land that was taken from her grandmother, Rá and her friends embark on a journey with the promise of a dream: to have a place in the world where be free and safe, where to build your own kingdom.
Laura Mora’s second feature film justifiably won the Golden Shell at the last San Sebastian Festival. The Colombia that tries to leave behind a past of violence captivated the members of the jury, who were able to see far beyond political cinema, since the film addresses the painful issue of the restitution of lands stolen during the war by paramilitary groups. But above all, ‘The Kings of the World’ is a fascinating adventure in which a group of children goes into the jungle in search of El Dorado. The director peppers the film with magical realism notes and confirms a personal look already present in her previous film, ‘Killing Jesus’, based on the murder of her father. The covid and the social protests in the Bajo Cauca area of Antioquia complicated an already impossible shoot as the film was starred by five kids who had never been in front of a camera. The director found them practicing ‘gravity biking’ in Medellín, hurtling down the roads at high speed on bicycles built by themselves. Some even sleep on the street. The night of the opening in San Sebastián they began to descend the stairs of the Kursaal all cool. When they got downstairs, all five were crying to the applause of the public. They had never seen the sea.
taking revenge on the world
“I have done the trip they make in the film many times, it is the path that must be traveled to go from Medellín to the sea,” explains the director. «It is a landscape that had always intrigued me, I wanted to shoot there. Images came to me of boys taking revenge on the world, finding their place while traversing that landscape.
Laura Mora does not hide the social dimension of her story, the threats and murders suffered by Colombians trying to recover their lands, seized by paramilitaries during decades of violence. But if ‘The Kings of the World’ succeeds, it is because of the director’s ability to achieve captivating violent, poetic and moving images, in conjunction with an overwhelming use of music.
There are moments in the film in which it seems that we are watching a documentary, such is the naturalness of some kids whose dialogues have been subtitled in the Spanish premiere. Portrait of a devastated country, still lawless, ‘The Kings of the World’ is a bitter and lyrical tale that escapes the conventions of ‘road movies’. It goes beyond realism and penetrates “into a territory in which the imagination of the boys cannot be expropriated, only there are they free and cannot be expelled”, according to the director.
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