Colombia’s Displaced Communities Take Center Stage in Juan Andrés Arango’s ‘Where the River Begins’

Colombian-Canadian filmmaker Juan Andrés Arango returns to features with “Where the River Begins,” a Colombian-set drama that follows a young, widowed Emberá mother and her daughter as they leave a violent Bogotá neighbourhood and attempt to reach the Andágueda River, the jungle landscape they once called home.

The film marks Arango’s first time centring of an Indigenous female protagonist and continues his exploration of migration, marginalisation and the blurred line between memory and present reality, themes that have shaped his work since “La Playa DC” and “X500” (TIFF 2016).

Shot across Bogotá, Medellín, Quibdó and deep into the Chocó rainforest, “Where the River Begins” combines social realism with a strong sensory dimension, drawing on Emberá cosmologies, the belief of the jungle as judge and the experience of communities displaced by Colombia’s long conflict.

Working with non-professional actors, the director cast Girleza Duave Cerezo from the Emberá Dobidá community as Yajaira,…