The kings of the world wants to conquer the Academy and that is why it was the film chosen by Colombia to participate in the category of Best foreign film in the next Oscar awards.
The announcement was made by the Colombian Academy of Cinematographic Arts and Sciences, which specified that its members chose it to represent the country at the 2023 Oscar Awards. The Kings of the World is directed by Laura Mora from Antioquia and the production was carried out by Cristina Gallego y Miranda Torres.
In this regard, the producer Cristina Gallego He assured that “this film has required an immeasurable effort during the last four years. We have overcome countless crises, a pandemic, restructuring of the entire creative team, national strikes, road closures, armed strikes, floods in the winter wave, work with vulnerable populations, the longest and most problematic post-production I have ever faced…so just having done it can already be considered a miracle.”
Regarding being chosen by Colombia for the Academy Awards, Gallego specified that, in the midst of the political change that Colombia is experiencing, and with all the support they have achieved internationally, from the public, North American distribution and sales, “we makes us optimistic regarding the campaign that is to come”.
It should be remembered that this film has just received the Golden Shell at the San Sebastian Film Festivalwhich became a milestone in the history of Colombian cinema.
In colombia It will be seen in theaters from next October 13.
It is important to clarify that the fact of being chosen to represent Colombia does not mean that it enters directly into the nominations.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences designates a deadline (November 15 this year) to receive one film per country, usually between 85 and 90 films arrive.
From there, the members of The Academy will deliver a shortlist of regarding 15 chosen films on December 21 and the five nominated films in this category will be publicly announced on January 24, 2023. It will be on that date that it will be known whether or not Colombia achieved its second nomination in its history in this section (the first time was with El Abrazo de la Serpiente).
The Oscar ceremony is scheduled for March 12, 2023.
You may be interested in: In Medellín you can go to the movies with 3,600 pesos
The Kings of the World tells the story of five young people who embark on a journey to reclaim the land that one of them inherited from his grandmother and that violence wants to take away from them.
It’s the story Rá (19), Culebro (16), Sere (14), Winny (12) Nano (13) five young people from the streets of Medellin. Cinco “reyes” no kingdom. In his hands they have some old writings of a land inherited by Rá. After receiving a letter from the government land restitution office, notifying the return of the land that was taken from his grandmother, Rá will decide to undertake the trip with his friends with the promise of finally fulfilling a dream: to have a place in the world where you can be free, where you can be safe, where you can build your own kingdom.
The film tries to exalt, in the words of the paisa director, the romantic character that exists in the subversive and the disobedient, even from the very decision of the place where it was shot.
“I don’t know how many people told us that we mightn’t shoot in Bajo Cauca, but I never gave up. That is perhaps the first political act of this film, I think. Demonstrating that there should be no banned territories, that we cannot make it impossible for anyone to approach beauty, that is also an act of resistance. At the same time, verifying that, in some way, the power of the violent also lies in the construction of the very rumor of violence, which generates so much fear that it prevents contact with the territory”, assures the director.
Laura Mora has defined herself as very controlling in her work and the shooting and its complex conditions made her understand that she might not control everything: “When I started working with the director of photography David Gallego, that was one of the first hints: ‘this is a movie where we can’t control everything. Are we going to have preconceived ideas? Yes, but we have to be open to everything changing us…’. The result is that some scenes turned out totally different from what we imagined and I think they are much better. But it is life itself there, also manifesting itself both in the landscape and in the boys. And the movies thrive on that. This movie in general may be the most extreme thing I’ve ever done.”
Laura Mora had already presented the film Matar a Jesús in 2018.
