Film Forum

“Like an indigenous THE GODFATHER” (The Hollywood Reporter), BIRDS OF PASSAGE follows the emergence of the drug trade from the perspective of the narcotic-harvesting tribes of the Colombian Guajira desert. As American demand for marijuana grows in the 1970s, a cash bonanza hits Colombia, quickly turning farmers into hard-nosed businessmen. A Wayuu family discovers the perks of wealth and power, plus the dangers inherent in mixing greed, passion, and honor. A drug-trade fratricidal war puts at risk the family’s new-found status, their ancestral traditions, and their very lives. Directors Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego (creators of EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT) lend a vivid, colorful ethnographic grounding to this true story of the South American drug wars. “Superbly crafted. (A) Colombian crime epic. Both ethnographic chronicle and art-house thriller.” – Jordan Mintzer, The Hollywood Reporter

COLOMBIA/DENMARK/MEXICO   2018   125 MINS. IN SPANISH AND WAYUU WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

THE ORCHARD

Reviews

“Critic’s Pick. Even as you may be reminded of other sweeping chronicles of fortunes made and souls undone by ambition and greed — GIANT, THE GODFATHER, even ‘Breaking Bad’ — your perception of the world is likely to be permanently altered. The experience made me think of some of my favorite movies (I’ll add Visconti’s LA TERRA TREMA to the list), but it’s also like nothing I’ve ever seen before.”
– A.O. Scott, The New York Times

“An ethnographic thriller... The directors, Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra, examine [Wayuu] traditions with ardent attention; their poised, richly textured images both unfold the action in tense detail and enmesh it in its social context, rescuing cultural memory from tragic devastation.”
– Richard Brody, The New Yorker

“The sprawling, colorful ensemble narrative plays like THE GODFATHER by way of Werner Herzog... In the canon of Colombian cinema to date, it stands out as a masterpiece of cultural biography.”
– Eric Kohn, IndieWire

“GRIPPING. ENGROSSING. More accessible than EMBRACE OF THE SERPENT, but crafted with the same skill and bone-deep sense of cultural authenticity.”
– Wendy Ide, Screen Daily