Coming Home
Touching upon personal themes of forgiveness and hope, Reencuentro celebrates the courageous women reconciling Colombia’s splintered spirit
For Colombians, the penultimate Wednesday of August 2016 was a hopeful watershed moment, after five decades of conflict. Since 1964, Colombia has endured years of armed disputes between government forces and various armed groups that deeply impacted the nation’s collective consciousness.
Set six years after a ground-breaking armistice was signed with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) – which officially ended major conflict across broad swathes of Colombia – Reencuentro explores the guarded hopefulness of one community as five decades of dust begin to settle.
Co-developed and directed by Cecilia Vasquez and Adriana Bernal, Reencuentro stars Indhira Serrano (Adele), a teacher who has returned to her community following the cessation of conflict, to begin the process of rebuilding and reconciling their collective past with their present lives.
Born and raised in a town similar to the one depicted in the film, this was a deeply personal affair for Indhira. “Adele’s character is universal because reconciliation is universal,” says Serrano. “This story reminds me of where I come from, where many believe they only have two options: be villains, or victims. It’s not a binary choice. This film presents an alternative.”
For Serrano and much of the team that produced Reencuentro, the intersection between Adele’s story and Colombia’s history is what makes this film so personal to them. “If we don’t think about healing and forgiveness, there isn’t a future. I want people to believe in hope and love; to think about what can be possible if we forgive, heal, and reconcile,” says co-director Cecilia Vasquez. This personal connection to the film became the production’s heartbeat, persisting through extreme climate, humidity, and challenging conditions while on-location in Rio Cedro.
Adriana Bernal is Colombia’s first official female cinematographer, and she used FUJIFILM X-H2S for three days. Reencuentro employs a gritty and stylized vérité approach, emphasizing the screenplay’s realism, with multiple changes of location. In such challenging conditions, the lightweight versatility of X-H2S and FUJINON MKX cinema zoom lenses enabled the crew to focus less on cumbersome relocations, and more on creative decisions.
“We moved locations on foot, by boat, with motorcycles, and on donkeys. The camera was always on. In that climate, with that humidity, we expected challenges – but we had virtually no problems,” Adriana recalls. “I am sure that if we’d had larger equipment on this project, we would not have been able to change location so efficiently. Things would definitely have gone wrong.”
Image quality and versatility have long been hallmarks of X Series cameras and lenses. But for Bernal, these values were just the beginning. “Our goal was to use natural light as a tool to realistically tell the story. The high dynamic range and color science made for exceptional filmmaking. I think this camera will help many others travel further and faster than they’ve ever gone before.”
Reencuentro was produced in conjunction with La Olimpo S.A.S and FUJIFILM Colombia S.A.S in Rio Cedro, Colombia. The film will be submitted to festivals throughout 2022. For more information, visit www.ReencuentroFilm.com.
