Saturday, 13 March 2010, 1.00 pm, Birkbeck Cinema, 43 Gordon Square, London WC1H 0PD

Colombian filmmaker Luis Ospina has been directing films for over 40 years. His documentary work has focused on the exploration of the genre as a subjective one in which fiction and non-fiction intermingle. Since studying film in UCLA, Ospina started collaborating with his friend Carlos Mayolo. The programme of screenings has been organised by Catalina Lozano (Gasworks) in collaboration with Dr Luciana Martins (CILAVS) and the Colombian Embassy in the UK.

Programme

1.00-2.30 pm    Session 1: Cali as scenario: Mayolo-Ospina Films

  • Oiga Vea (Carlos Mayolo and Luis Ospina, 1972, 27”, 16 mm transferred to DVD, colour)
  • Cali: de película (Carlos Mayolo and Luis Ospina, 1973, 14′, 35 mm transferred to DVD, colour)
  • Agarrando Pueblo (The Vampires of Poverty) (Carlos Mayolo and Luis Ospina, 1978, 28′, 16 mm transferred to DVD, black and white and colour)

2.45-4.45 pm    Session 2: Andres Caicedo: Unos pocos buenos amigos(Luis Ospina, 1986, 86′, video, colour)

4.30-6.30 pm    Session 3: Un Tigre de Papel (Luis Ospina, 2007, 114′, video, colour)

6.45-7.45 pm    Q&A with Luis Ospina, chaired by Dr Rory O’Bryen

7.45-8.45 pm     Drinks reception

Luis Ospina

Born in Cali, Colombia in 1949, Ospina studied film in the University of South California (1968-69) and in the University of California (1969-72). He was the co-director of the Cine Club de Cali (1972-77) with Andrés Caicedo and co-founded with Caicedo and Ramiro Arbeláez the specialised magazine Ojo al Cine (1974-77). His work has been the subject of retrospective cycles in  New York, Caracas, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Toulouse, Barcelona, Madrid, Cali, Medellín, Barranquilla and Bogotá. His films have been awarded in several international festivals such as Oberhausen, Cádiz, Toulouse, Bilbao, Sitges, Habana, Biarritz, Lima, Caracas, Bogotá and Cartagena. He is the author of Palabras al viento, Mis sobras completas (2007), a compilation of his writings on film. He is the current Artistic Director of Cali International Film Festival.

Dr Rory O’Bryen

Specialized in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Colombian culture and history, post-Boom Latin American literature and Latin American cinema, O’Bryen is University Lecturer in Latin American Literature and Culture at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Literature, Testimony and Cinema in Contemporary Colombian Culture: Spectres of “La Violencia” (London: Tamesis, 2008).