Film Screening:

Los Hongos
(Oscar Ruiz Navia, 2014, 103 min, Colombia, in Spanish w/ English subtitles, Color, Blu-Ray)

 -- Introduced by Miguel Rojas-Sotelo (CLACS) / Discussion to follow!

Street artists Ras and Calvin are good friends and partners in crime. With limited prospects but big ambitions to alter their local surroundings for the better, the two young men traverse Cali on bike and skateboard, scouting for surfaces to decorate with whatever paint they can scavenge. Inspired by news of the Arab Spring uprisings, they dream of collaborating on a vast mural that will express solidarity with Egypt's student demonstrators, echoing the sentiment "We will never be silent again." But will Ras and Calvin ever get the chance to have their voices heard?

The film's title, Los Hongos, translates to The Fungi - living creatures that appear in the context of dreadful putrefaction and decay; life that comes from death. And it is here that the spirit of the film lies, as the filmmaker says: "'Life,' which I intend to portray because death has touched me - not only my grandmother’s, but also the death of my home after the divorce of my parents. I have returned to a city that I find different, almost alien, which fills me with nostalgia and therefore I want to turn into a song of life."

-- “Like a love letter to his hometown, Oscar Ruiz Navia’s second feature, Los Hongos, provides a snapshot of present-day Colombia, exploring issues of religion, love, art and class through the unclouded eyes of the young protagonists.” -- Sound on Sight

Cost: Free and open to the public.

Sponsors: The Asian Pacific Studies Institute (APSI), the Center for European Studies (CES), the Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies (CLACS), the Duke Islamic Studies Center (DISC), the Duke University Center for International Studies (DUCIS), the Duke University Middle East Studies Center (DUMESC), the Program in the Arts of the Moving Image (AMI), and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation “Partnership in a Global Age”