Agarrando pueblo

It is Quite interesting how foreign festivals consistently love seeing people living in misery and give honors to Asian films depicting poverty and crime: from Mike de leon "Aliwan Paradise" to Lamberto V. Avellana's "Anak Dalita" to Lino Brocka's "Insiang" to Brillante Mendoza's "Kinatay" to Hirokazu Koreeda's "Shoplifters" and to Joon-ho's "Parasite" as the meandering camera is Orientalizing. But here is Vampires Of Poverty (Agarrando Pueblo), a parody movie that called out filmmakers exploiting poverty in Latin America in the 70s, sort of a mock-docu on the practice of pornomiseria (poverty porn) to garner film festival acclaim with CS Lewis "Culture of Poverty" being an underlying element to the entire plot. A pivotal, iconic work of Colombian indie cinema, timeless and must-see manifesto on misery porn by Carlos Mayolo & Luis Ospina who was part of Cali Group influenced by Tercer Cine movement at vanguard of left-wing filmmaking in Latin America.

This short film reflects a satirical vision on how the so-called master film-makers in Colombia are just a bunch on fools whose ambition goes beyond a real narrative but leading to black propaganda of the country.

Desperated looking for poverty where there's not too much, a couple of film directors try to make a documentary on homeless, ignorant, mindless people, giving themselves to the extreme option of contracting actors to make a fake poor family when failed to capture that inexistent reality.

It's curious to note that even today the same tendency is still alive on some Colombian directors (but today on themes such as guerrilla, violence, kidnapping, etcetera), giving this masterpiece a renewal concept.