30. Film Festival della Lessinia
Bosco Chiesanuova (Italia)
23 August - 1 September 2024

Italian premiere

Unlike many peers who have left their town, Jorge has chosen to stay and take care of the coffee fields inherited from his deceased father. In a house perched on the steep slopes of the Colombian mountains, the young man takes care of his sick grandfather together with his cousin Rosa, with whom he shares erotic adventures without much affection. Up there very few now dedicate themselves to harvesting coffee, so the plants suffer from a disease: rust. A rust that also seems to cover Jorge's heart and that will barely be scratched by the return of Andrea, the girl he has been in love with since school. The return of classmates for the Christmas holidays will trigger a tormented confrontation between those who left and those who remained. Finally, Jorge will choose to remain alone in the mountains, to fight for his farm. The mountain looms as a grandiose backdrop for the protagonist's loneliness, rendered in a knowing interpretation by Juan Daniel Ortiz Hernandez, that embodies the effort of facing his own destiny, avoiding escaping from his own land and from oneself.

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  Juan Sebastián Mesa

  A Colombian director and screenwriter, born in Medellin, he graduated in audiovisual communication. He also studied screenwriting and contemporary narrative. His short film Kalashnikov (2013) was nominated for Best Short Film at the Colombian Academy Awards. His first feature film, Los Nadie (2016), set in Medellin, won the Audience Award-Circolo del Cinema, Verona, at the 31st edition of the Venice Critics' Week.