Top 100 Most Anticipated Foreign Films of 2017: # 97. Ciro Guerra’s Birds of Passage

Birds of Passage

Director: Ciro Guerra
Writer: Ciro Guerra

Ciro Guerra’s 2015 film Embrace of the Serpent won top honors out of Directors’ Fortnight and was the first Colombian film to receive an Oscar nomination. Based on the fervor surrounding his third film, it’s no surprise to see him lining up all sorts of projects, including an English language studio film The Detainee, as well as an adaptation of J.M. Coetzee’s masterwork Waiting for the Barbarians with Mark Rylance attached to star. But before either of those gets made, next up for Guerra is Birds of Passage, which the director describes as a Colombian Western, taking place from 1968 to 1980 with filming taking place in the La Guajira desert, where he shot his 2009 sophomore film The Wind Journeys.

Cast: TBA

Production Co./Producer(s): MC Productions, Caracol TV, Buffalo Films, Pimiento Films.

U.S. Distributor: Rights available.

Release Date: Guerra’s debut Wandering Shadows (2004) premiered at San Sebastian, but he went to Un Certain Regard in 2009 with The Wind Journeys and then bowed in Directors’ Fortnight with 2015’s Embrace of the Serpent. We’d imagine Birds of Passage, however, which is scheduled to shoot in Colombia this January, won’t be ready for presentation until the fall, which could see Guerra premiere in Locarno, Venice, or TIFF.

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