Ciro Guerra
Set in the horror of Auschwitz concentration camp, it became the coveted Oscar as best film Foreign Language.
The film, directed by László Memes, beat Colombian ‘Embrace of the Serpent‘, (‘El Abrazo de la Serpiente‘), French Mustang, the journey Theeb and Danish A War.
Embrace of the Serpent directed by Ciro Guerra, was placed on the list of favorites last January 18th among the five final nominees in the category of best Foreign Film.
“People around the world and of very distant cultures had an emotional connection with the film. There are many people interested in seeking other forms of being human, other life forms and Amazonian lifestle is something of which we still have much to learn. The Amazon is a very strong Latin American identity,” said the flimmaker, 34 year old, who walked the red carpet next to his producer, Cristina Gallego, and actors Antonio Bolívar and Brionne Davis.
The story focuses on trips to the Amazon by explorers Theodor Koch-Grunberg and American Richard Evans Schultes made, as well as the relationships established with the inhabitants of the place and violent the environment to which they were subjected by the colonizers.
Part of the inspiration for making the film was taken from the diaries of two explorers who visited the country in the last century.
On the film, Grunberg travels next to young Karamakate, the last indigenous member of a community ravaged by rubber tappers, through the jungle in search of the yakruna, an all cure plant and in the case of the German explorer will allow him to recover from a disease that afflicts.
Decades later, an old Karamakate embarks on a journey with Ethnobotanic Richard Evans Schultes in order to locate the same plant so that he can dream.