Day 207. Los Colores de la montaña

Tonight I traveled far across the city, by two buses and a good 1/2 mile trek on foot in speed-walking mode to see a movie at the 25th Annual Chicago Latino Film Festival.  For months now I had been hearing about this movie from my husband.  He had played the trailer for me twice.  I was captivated too.  You can never really tell much about a movie from a trailer or maybe you can tell everything from a trailer.  In any case I was really looking forward to this movie.
From my small experience with watching Colombian movies they fall into three or maybe four categories (now be forewarned, this is a gross oversimplification).  1)Violence 2)Drugs and violence 3)Beautiful dramas of landscape and people 4)Comedy/Soccer [Futbol].  I enjoy the later two categories and dread watching the first two.  Violence is not something I can really stomach watching and it deeply effects my psyche for days afterward, in addition I fall into a debate in my mind: Do I ignore the terrible tragedies of the world and live in happiness or do I witness them and hope my witness will become action that will make change while I feel my heart sink in sadness?
Interestingly, Los Colores de la montaña [the colors of the mountain] was a movie in a category born of both violence and beauty.  I relished the sweeping landscapes of the mountains that were many shades of green with a continued mist that I remember so vividly during my own trip to Colombia- a trip that won my heart, Colombia is SO beautiful.  It tells a beautiful story of some people, children dedicated to futbol, school and the love of their land.  But it also tells a tragic story of the guerillas and paramilitary who stole this land from the people and killed thousands for trying to keep it. (That last sentence was a litle loaded with my own sentiment as the movie does a good job of trying to hide the political influence and only show the results on the people.)  Later as my husband and I were discussing the movie on our way home, he told me how it is most likely that the land was stolen in a coup by the very government that postulated that they were trying to stop the paramilitary.  That the people left to save their lives and when they returned after the paramiltary was gone, that the land then belonged to big corporations to grow palm trees and such to make ethanol.
It is a good movie to make you think and feel so much, I congratulate them for the wonderfulness of their movie but most importantly for not turning away from the tragedy, but instead for confronting it-for telling it's story, maybe if more people see the movie and learn of the conflicts that are still ongoing, then eventually we can stand up together as brothers to end the violence.
With that I will leave you with a photo I took during a peace rally in Bogota to end the occupation of the guerrilla group, Las Farc. It doesn't look like that many people, but this is just one section of a line that reached for many blocks accross the city-millions of people turned out to march on that day.