They tend to always begin with a strong section opening film, and Cristina Gallego & Ciro Guerra‘s Birds of Passage (review) did not disappoint as the official Director’s Fortnight 50th anniversary ribbon cutter. It’ll likely gain more traction than the world wide acclaim that Embrace of the Serpent received, the team employed the services of some strong female heroines in Colombian actress Natalia Reyes and Carmiña Martínez in what is a generational tale about blood being thicker than water under the guise of the drug trade. With symbolic references to flight and migration, this is a particularly arty and noteworthy timeline to the infiltration of greed. Here is the post screening world premiere Q&A in English and in Spanish with cast and the filmmakers.