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Film Archive

Crab Trap

Another View 2010 / El vuelco del cangrejo / Colombia, France 2009

A feature debut set in an Afro-Colombian community on the Pacific coast. The village of La Barra is the locus of a story about a young man named Daniel who is trying to escape from his past. In a place surrounded by the jungle and the sea, where life progresses at a pace dictated by the laws of Nature, a clash plays out between two visions: the ancestral versus the foreign, tradition versus innovations in the spirit of modern times.

Crab Trap Crab Trap

Synopsis

Trying to escape from his past, Daniel heads for the village of La Barra on the Pacific coast. He sets about looking around for a motor boat to help him leave Colombia forever. He only intended on staying in the village for a couple of days, but La Barra has been recently hit by a mysterious lack of fish. The fishermen have had to sail farther out to sea and no boat is available. But there are more complications to Daniel’s situation. The villagers never bothered to verify the ownership of the land on which they have lived their whole lives. And so a foreigner named El Paisa begins to intrude as a landowner who wants to build a beach resort. The village protests but even local leader Cerebro is trying to introduce innovations and adapt to the arrival of modern times. This is the story of "a man who discovers a place surrounded by the jungle and the sea and where life progresses at a [...] pace dictated by the laws of Nature.... I tried to express this clash between two visions, the ancestral versus the foreign, and the lack of understanding of those of us who live in the cities when we see ourselves as above those remaining on the periphery,” says the debuting director.

About the film

96 min / Color, 35 mm

Director Oscar Ruíz Navia / Screenplay Oscar Ruíz Navia / Dir. of Photography Sofía Oggioni Hatty, Andrés Pineda / Music Gualajo / Editor Felipe Guerrero / Producer Diana Bustamante, Guillaume de Seille, Oscar Ruíz Navia, Gerylee Polanco / Production Contravía Films, Arizona Films / Cast Rodrigo Vélez, Arnobio Salazar Rivas "Cerebro”, Jaime Andres Castaño, Yisela Álvarez, Karent Hinestroza, Miguel Valoy, Israel Rivas / Contact m-appeal world sales UG
www: www.elvuelcodelcangrejo.com

About the director

Oscar Ruíz Navia

Oscar Ruíz Navia (b. 1982, Cali, Colombia), after studying at the National Film and Television School of Columbia, graduated in social communication from Valley University. He started out as assistant director and assistant cameraman. In 2006 he found Contravía Films, an independent production company which oversaw his feature debut Crab Trap, presented at the Locarno IFF. Filmography: the documentary Three Pounds: Music for the Sick (Tres Libras: Música para enfermos, 2002), the short feature Sunrise (2003), the documentary The Children of the Beast (Los Hijos de la Bestia, 2005), the experimental short Vacuum Package 1, 2, 3 (Al vacío 1, 2, 3, 2006), the documentary There Is a Brain in La Barra (En la Barra hay un Cerebro, 2006), and the experimental movie Liquefaction (Licuefacción, 2007).

Contacts

m-appeal world sales UG
Prinzessinnenstr. 16, 10969, Berlin
Germany
Phone: +49 306 150 7505, +491 729 570 051
E-mail: [email protected]

Guests

Maren Kroymann
Sales Agent

Aleksandra Abykova
Sales Agent

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