Colombian filmmaker Jaime Osorio Márquez has died at the age of 46 of undisclosed causes. He was best known for his 2011 debut feature El páramo / The Squad, which won the Citizen Kane Award for Best Directorial Revelation at the Sitges Film Festival and the Best Screenplay Award at the Guadalajara Film Festival.
Born October 30, 1975 in Cali, he studied at the Rennes University in France. He began his career as a s successful advertising director, directing commercials for numerous companies including Avianca, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, Yoplait, Alpina, McDonald’s, and Nestlé.
In 2011, he wrote and directed the psychological thriller The Squad, which was produced by Rhayuela Cine in co-production with the Spanish company Alta Films and the Argentine company Sudestada. The film played at numerous international film festivals and was sold to multiple countries, including the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Turkey, Thailand, and Taiwan. The film follows a military squad that faces violent annihilation when they investigate a sinister abandoned base in the desolate wastelands of Colombia.
Osorio’s second feature film, The Sacrifice /Siete cabezas (2017), had its world premiere at the Warsaw Film Festival. The film tells the story of Marcos, a withdrawn park ranger who sees the fragile balance achieved in his isolation collapse with the arrival of a couple of biologists investigating strange bird deaths. Unfortunately, the desire and envy for normality represented by the couple awaken the monster he has been trying to control. His face, his legs, and his arms don't belong to him and as the desperation becomes uncontrollable, he can only see one way out: mutilation. In 2021 he directed the series A Thousand Fangs / Mil colmillos for HBO Max.
