‘A Poet’ Trailer: Colombia’s Oscar Entry Is a Hilariously Caustic Character Study in Daniel Clowes Mode

Colombia’s Oscar entry “A Poet” is one of the most bruisingly funny contenders in this year’s Best International Feature lineup, but it still packs plenty of art. Writer/director Simón Mesa Soto directs first-time actor Ubeimar Rios, whose obsession with poetry in a literary industry bent more toward spectacle has turned him into the stereotypical tortured artist. Until he meets a teenage protege who turns his life well, not quite around, but certainly upside down.

Distributor 1-2 Special is set to release the film, which won the Cannes Un Certain Regard Jury Prize earlier this year, in January. The film’s caustic humor centered around a sad-sack protagonist whose pratfalls recall the work of graphic novelist Daniel Clowes or, more recently, Owen Kline’s A24 movie “Funny Pages.”

More from IndieWire

Below, IndieWire debuts the exclusive trailer ahead of preliminary shortlist voting — which includes Best International Feature, Best Documentary, and more categories — which begins December 8. The shortlists will be announced Tuesday, December 16. (See our Academy Awards predictions here.)

Here’s the synopsis courtesy of 1-2 Special: “Middle-aged and erratic, Oscar is a failed writer who has given up on life. Unemployed and living with family, he wanders the streets of Medellín in a drunken stupor, lamenting the state of literature in his home country, where he has succumbed to the cliché of the tortured artist. However, the opportunity to mentor a young student offers a chance at redemption, if he doesn’t screw it up first. In a performance marked by darkly comic pathos, first-time actor Ubeimar Rios stars in Simón Mesa Soto’s Un Certain Regard Jury Prize-winner ‘A Poet,’ a raw and riotous farce about how good deeds are often met with the universe’s idea of cruel and unusually poetic punishment.”

More on the film from IndieWire’s Critic’s Pick review out of Cannes from Ben Croll: “Put together with impressive efficiency — the film only started shooting in January — this art-world send-up explores the many fears and frustrations the acclaimed director felt in the decade since making the 2014 short film Palme d’Or winner ‘Leidi,’ channeling them into a darkly-funny burlesque that speaks of verse while playing like a Dan Clowes comic brought to manic life… The film’s bawdy sense of humor plays off a non-professional star — himself a full-time teacher from a nearby school — that looks like he was drawn by Robert Crumb and acts the part just as well.”

“A Poet” opens in select theaters January 30, 2026, from 1-2 Special. Other recent and upcoming releases from the distributor include Harris Dickinson’s “Urchin,” Radu Jude’s “Dracula,” Christian Petzold’s “Miroirs No. 3,” and Mark Jenkin’s “Rose of Nevada.”