BARRIO TRISTE

Stillz, the enigmatic figure behind the music videos of some of the biggest artists in the music industry, such as Bad Bunny and Rosalía, makes a powerful transition to cinema with a DIY-textured feature debut of hallucinatory intensity that uniquely blends found footage with sci-fi elements and a (doomed from the very start) coming of age theme. Set in Medellín in the late 1980s, a group of teen outcasts snatches a camera from a news reporter as he relays residents’ testimonies about the appearance of some peculiar flashes of light in the sky. From that moment on, they relentlessly document their lives in the favela, and the violent predicaments they become entangled in. In brief interludes, we see them struggling to find the words to articulate their feelings or their experiences in one-on-one moments with the camera, which feel more like confessions than interrogations. Enhanced by Arca‘s psychedelic musical touch and produced by Harmony Korine, the psychotropic and profoundly evocative Barrio Triste insists on searching for hope in the most unexpected of places. And it transmits its signal from the VHS analog era straight into the heart of the digital age.