Cristina Gallegos and Ciro Guerra’s crime epic Birds of Passage has been picked as Colombia’s foreign-language film Oscar submission, the country’s Film Academy announced on Wednesday.
Premiered at Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, the film reveals the slow and steady destruction of a close-knit native family who gets caught up in the international drug trade in the 1970s, and was described as “a beautifully crafted, slow-burn crime saga steeped in native traditions,” in Jordan Mintzer’s review.
Earlier this year, the film’s lead, Natalia Reyes, was cast in the leading role in the upcoming Terminator reboot, where she will play Dani, a young woman from a working-class neighborhood in Mexico City who finds herself in the battle between humans and machines.
Guerra and Gallegos’ previous film, Embrace of the Serpent (El Abrazo de la Serpiente), became the first Colombian picture to land an Academy Award nomination in 2016.
The Colombian Film Academy also announced Laura Mora’s Toronto premiere Killing Jesus will represent the country at Spain’s Goya awards.
Birds of Passage is distributed by The Orchard in North America.
