''El Amparo'' is a 2016 film directed by Rober Calzadilla and coproduced between

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

and

Venezuela Venezuela (; ), officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ( es, link=no, República Bolivariana de Venezuela), is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many islands and islets in th ...

. The film is set in

El Amparo El Amparo is a town located in Páez Municipality, Apure of Venezuela. It is located on the border with Colombia, on the banks of the Arauca River. The Massacre of El Amparo took place near the town.Amnesty International Amnesty Internation ...

, a Venezuelan location on the shores of

Arauca River The Arauca River ( es, Río Arauca) rises in the Andes Mountains of north-central Colombia and ends at the Orinoco in Venezuela. For part of its run it is the boundary between Colombia and Venezuela. The major city on its banks is Arauca, Col ...

, in the Colombian border, based in the 1988

Massacre of El Amparo The Massacre of El Amparo was a massacre of 14 fishermen which took place near the village of El Amparo, in Venezuela's western state of Apure, on 29 October 1988. Amnesty International, 31 March 1993Venezuela: The Amparo Massacre: Four years on ...

, where the Venezuelan army killed several fishermen, accusing them of being Colombian guerillas. The film premiered as the opening film of the 2016

AFI AFI may refer to: * ''Address-family identifier'', a 16 bit field of the Routing Information Protocol * Ashton Fletcher Irwin, an Australian drummer * AFI (band), an American rock band ** ''AFI'' (2004 album), a retrospective album by AFI rele ...

Latin American Film Festival. It was screened at Colombian theaters on 28 November 2019. The film was Venezuela's candidate for the

Goya Award for Best Iberoamerican Film The Goya Award for Best Ibero-American Film ( es, Goya a la Mejor Película Iberoamericana), formerly the Goya Award for Best Spanish Language Foreign Film ( es, Goya a la Mejor Película Extranjera de Habla Hispana, 1987–2008) and the Goya Award ...

in 2018.

Plot

, in the Venezuelan border location with Colombia, two men survive an armed attack perpetrated in the

, where fourteen of their colleagues were killed. The army accuses them of being Colombian guerrillas, intimidates them and tries to take them away from their cell where they are guarded by a local policeman and the locals, who desperately try to prevent them from being taken away. The men say that they are simple fishermen, but the pressure for them to yield to the official version is overwhelming.

Cast

* Giovanny García * Vicente Quintero * Samantha Castillo * Vicente Peña * Rossana Hernández * Patrizia Fusco

Reception

''El Amparo'' was awarded with the Best Film and Best Screenplay

São Paulo International Film Festival The São Paulo International Film Festival ( pt, Mostra Internacional de Cinema de São Paulo), also known internationally as Mostra, is an annual film festival held in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. A non-profit event, the festival is organized ...

, the Audience Award in the

Bogotá Bogotá (, also , , ), officially Bogotá, Distrito Capital, abbreviated Bogotá, D.C., and formerly known as Santa Fe de Bogotá (; ) during the Spanish period and between 1991 and 2000, is the capital city of Colombia, and one of the larges ...

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

and

Biarritz Biarritz ( , , , ; Basque also ; oc, Biàrritz ) is a city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the French Basque Country in southwestern France. It is located from the border with Spain. ...

film festivals and the Best Film Award in the Venezuela and Marseilles festivals.

References

External links

*
El amparo
at Film Affinity {{DEFAULTSORT:Amparo, El 2010s Spanish-language films 2016 films 2016 drama films Colombian drama films Venezuelan drama films Massacre of El Amparo 2010s Colombian films Spanish-language drama films