Oscilloscope Laboratories has announced the U.S. theatrical release of the much-anticipated Oscar-nominated Colombian film Embrace of the Serpent / El abrazo de la serpiente by Ciro Guerra.
The film opens on Wednesday, February 17 at Film Forum and Lincoln Plaza in New York City, followed by a national rollout including San Francisco, Washington DC, Miami, Atlanta, Denver, Boston. Philadelphia, Houston, among other American cities.
At once blistering and poetic, the ravages of colonialism cast a dark shadow over the South American landscape in Embrace of the Serpent, the third feature by Guerra. Filmed in stunning black-and-white, Embrace of the Serpent centers on Karamakate, an Amazonian shaman and the last survivor of his people, and the two scientists who, over the course of 40 years, build a friendship with him. The film was inspired by the real-life journals of two explorers (Theodor Koch-Grünberg and Richard Evans Schultes) who traveled through the Colombian Amazon during the last century in search of the sacred and difficult-to-find psychedelic Yakruna plant.
The film had its world premiere at Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes. where it won the top prize of the competition, and it became the first Colombian film to ever been nominated for Best Foreign Language Film.
