Producer Diana Bustamante (right) with actress Tilda Swinton at the opening night of the 2018 edition of the Cartagena Film Festival
Memoria, the most recent film by acclaimed Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul starring British actress Tilda Swinton was presented with the Jury Prize at the Cannes Film Festival yesterday. The international co-production between Colombia, Thailand, France, Germany, Mexico, and Qatar about a Scottish woman who, after hearing a loud ‘bang’ at daybreak, begins experiencing a mysterious sensory syndrome while traversing the jungles of Colombia, had its world premiere at the French film festival this week, and was met with strong critical acclaim. In addition to its renowned director and protagonist, a key player to make this project happen was Colombian producer Diana Bustamante, who is also a major figure in South American cinema.
Bustamante has supported and launched the careers of directors like Óscar Ruiz Navia, Ciro Guerra, Juan Andrés Arango, and William Vega, playing a leading role in the internationalization of Colombian cinema. Born in Medellín, she studied at the National University of Colombia in Bogota. In 2007, she co-founded the production company Ciudad Lunar Producciones along with Cristina Gallego and Guerra and produced the 2009 film The Wind Journeys / Los viajes del viento, which premiered at Cannes’ Un Certain Regard. That same year she produced Ruiz Navia’s debut feature Crab Trap / El vuelco del cangrejo, which played at numerous international film festivals including Toronto, Berlin, and Karlovy Vary.
In 2011, she co-founded production company Burning Blue, and two films she produced had their world premiere at Cannes the following year: La Playa D.C. by Juan Andrés Arango in the Un Certain Regard competition, and La Sirga by William Vega in the Directors’ Fortnight section. Bustamante returned to the French festival the following year with the Ruiz Navia’s short film Solecito; and she also produced his following feature film Los Hongos, which won the Special Jury Prize at the 2014 Locarno International Film Festival.
In 2015 she produced Jorge Forero’s Violencia, which had its world premiere in the Forum section at the Berlinale, and César Acevedo’s Land and Shade / La tierra y la sombra, which was the winner of the Cámera d’Or at Cannes in 2015. Through her production company, she has also co-produced other Latin American films such as the Mexican films Greatest Hits / Los mejores temas by Nicolás Pereda and Buy Me a Gun / Cómprame un revólver by Julio Hernández Cordón, the Argentine film Refugiado by Diego Lerman, the Chilean film Jesús by Fernando Guzzoni, and the Peruvian film Climas by Enrica Pérez.
In 2016, Cinema Tropical played tribute to the work of Burning Blue, with the film series “Colombia Pictures” at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. In addition to her activities as a producer, Bustamante served as Artistic Director of the Cartagena Film Festival between 2014 and 2018. She replaced Cinema Tropical’s co-founder Monika Wagenberg in the position, consolidating the event as one of the leading platforms for Latin American cinema. She has also served as a jury in numerous film festival including Cannes Critics’ Week, Rotterdam, Buenos Aires (BAFICI), Sarajevo and Morelia. This past March, her debut feature project Nuestra película was the winner of the Work in Progress Award at the FICUNAM film festival in Mexico.
The Making of Memoria
According to Bustamante—quoted by the Colombian press—director Apichatpong Weerasethakul had been thinking for a long time about making a film outside of his native country of Thailand, but he didn’t know where. He had some interest in Latin America from a couple of literary references seeing some resemblance to his culture. In 2017, the Cartagena Film Festival invited Weerasethakul as a guest, and he used the opportunity to travel through Colombia for a couple of months, and that’s when he realized he wanted to shoot his new project in the South American country.
“He found that there were many similarities with his country, but he also felt a fascination for the differences, those things that he discovered and did not quite understand. For example, one of the things that triggered the film writing process was when he saw the highway tunnel ‘Tunnel of the Line.’ He saw it and was amazed. He would say to me ‘why did they make that tunnel there if that doesn't make any sense?’ And of course, there is a geological fault next to it, and the most dangerous volcano in Colombia is only 12 kilometers away“ said Bustamante in an interview with newspaper Diario Criterio.
According to the Colombian producer, Weerasethakul and Swinton were friends wanting to work on a project together, and the Thai director thought this would the perfect opportunity. In addition, to Bustamante’s production company Burning, other international production companies financed the project including Kick The Machine, Illuminations Films (Past Lives), Anna Sanders Films, Match Factory Productions, ZDF/Arte and the Mexican company Piano. Memoria was shot between June and October 2019 in Bogotá and Pijao, a small coffee town in the west of the country. The rest of the cast was composed by Colombian actors Elkin Díaz and Juan Pablo Urrego, Mexican actor Daniel Giménez Cacho, and French actress Jeanne Balibar.
Despite the fact that is directed and starred by foreign talent, Bustamante argues that this is the most Colombian project she’s ever worked on. “In a profound way, I believe that this is the most Colombian film that I have made so far. And it has nothing to do with cultural exoticism. It is because Apichatpong was very sensitive and managed to capture something that is essential, that runs through us as a country, as a society, as a culture. That is why this movie is called Memoria. It has to do with that, with being Colombian in a profound way.” According to Bustamante, Memoria will premiere in Colombia during the second semester of 2021, with the attendance of Weerasethakul and Swinton.
