OPENS FRIDAY, MARCH 15
BIRDS OF PASSAGE
Drama – 2019 – Colombia – 125 Minutes – The Orchard – In Spanish with English Subtitles – Unrated
From the Oscar-nominated team behind the genre-defying Embrace of the Serpent, comes an equally audacious saga centered on the Wayúu indigenous people during a crucial period in recent Colombian history. Torn between his desire to become a powerful man and his duty to uphold his culture’s values, Rapayet (José Acosta) enters the drug trafficking business in the 1970s and finds quick success despite his tribe’s matriarch Ursula’s (Carmiña Martínez) disapproval. Ignoring ancient omens, Rapayet and his family get caught up in a conflict where honor is the highest currency and debts are paid with blood. A sprawling epic about the erosion of tradition in pursuit of material wealth, Birds of Passage is a visually striking exploration of loyalty, greed, and the voracious nature of change.
Directed by Cristina Gallego, Ciro Guerra
Starring José Acosta, Natalia Reyes, Carmiña Martínez, John Narváez, Greider Meza, José Vicente Cote, Juan Bautista Martínez, Miguel Viera, Sergio Coen
A beautifully crafted, slow-burn crime saga steeped in native traditions. – Hollywood Reporter
A visually stunning and often surprising true story that charts the rise of the Colombian drug business back before Escobar from its unexpected roots, among an indigenous clan in way over their heads… Few films have captured quite so powerfully the tension between the old and new worlds — a feat Birds of Passage accomplishes while simultaneously allowing audiences to channel the Wayuu’s surrealistic view of their surroundings, where spirits walk the earth, and wise women interpret their dreams. – Variety
You feel for these fathers, mothers and children as they endure their mythic rise and fall, but the ruthless, eternal cycle of violence begetting violence leaves no room for sentimentality. – Los Angeles Times
Guerra and Gallego’s film is no dusty period piece, it is wildly alive, yet it reminds us that no matter how modern we are, there are ancient songs our forebears knew whose melodies still rush in our blood. We are not creatures of one era or another or of one place or another, we are only ever birds of passage between our mythic pasts and our unwritten futures, being tossed around by the wind. – The Playlist
Birds of Passage is an enthralling, powerful statement and lamentation on the drugs trade’s inevitable encroachment upon on indigenous peoples and how gangsters casually destroyed them. – CineVue
The impact of modern vice upon the Wayuu is a captivating tale never told before, and the final few minutes are brutal in the best possible way. – Globe and Mail
As effectively violent and entertaining as Birds may be, there is a real current of bitterness and tragedy running through it. That bitterness speaks not of the physical colonization we saw with the conquistadors and rubber barons of Serpent, but more of a sort of colonization of ideas. – The Film Stage
Notwithstanding the bleak trajectory down which any film about blood feuds must spiral, this is an engrossing narco-thriller which deftly balances the storytelling tradition of the Wayuu with the genre conventions of the crime movie and the western . – Screen International
This is a story about power, but it’s also a story about place. More than that, you’ve really got to see it to believe it. – The Wrap
OPENS FRIDAY, MARCH 15
The New York Times Review: An Epic Narco Tale That Will Open Your Eyes