Two hundred years after Simón Bolívar’s liberation campaign, La Laguna del Soldado retraces “the Liberator’s” journey across the high-altitude marshlands of the páramo in search of glimpses of his ghost in the historically contested territory. Creatively intersecting traditions of landscape film, oral history, and political essay, the film cinematically reveals the collision of history and myth inscribed in the land of what would become an inevitable failed state–the Great Colombia.

La Laguna del Soldado traverses the páramo region, an inhospitable and mythical landscape high in the Eastern Colombian Cordillera, which Bolívar crossed with his army in a daring strategy regarded as the turning point of the Liberation movement. Embracing the páramo’s subtle but expressive natural rhythms, the film poetically explores intersecting socio-historical legacies of Bolivar’s Liberation Campaign and environmental perspectives of the páramo’s unique wetland ecosystem. The conjunction of political events and the ecosystems that host and participate in them reveal the current socio-political tensions embedded in the territory.

Shot in 16mm film, with acute emphasis on formal experimentation and sound design, the film interweaves the misty landscape with impressionistic accounts of its inhabitants, including a retired military man who recounts his battles against the guerrillas in the páramo, local artists transforming clay into art, and a group of ornithologists studying bats and hummingbirds but revealing the interconnection between the conflict and their research. These diverse voices unite time and sensibilities in the unique ecosystem, bridging historical and contemporary myths that inhabit and define the land.

La Laguna del Soldado is the second in a three-part series of films exploring the intersection of oral narratives, political outcomes and the territories marked by Simón Bolívar’s passage during the Liberation Campaign of Colombia in 1819. The first completed part is Bicentenario (Berlinale Forum Expanded 2021).

Pablo Álvarez-Mesa’s films have played at international film festivals including Berlinale, IFFR, MoMA Doc Fortnight, Visions du Réel, and RIDM. His most recent film, Bicentenario, explores Simón Bolívar’s battles of Independence, and was played at the 2021 Berlinale, MoMA Doc Fortnight and Viennale, among other festivals. It earned a Jury Mention at Festival Punto de Vista in the Main Competition. Pablo is also a cinematographer and editor and is currently editing with Sofia Bohdanowicz her new feature film Opus 28.

Pablo's interest in documentary lies in the relationship between facts and fiction; between what is recalled and what is inevitably constructed. His films touch in one way or another, issues of displacement, history and collective memory.

Aylin Gökmen is a filmmaker and producer from Switzerland and Turkey, whose films have been selected in numerous international festivals, including Toronto, Sundance, Locarno, and Telluride. Aylin is also a member of the executive committee of SWAN (Swiss Women’s Audiovisual Network) and serves as a co-producer and curator for Docs in Orbit.