Ivan D. Gaona's feature film debut had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival.


Guilty Men (Pariente), a drama-thriller hybrid revolving around a tense love triangle, has been picked as Colombia's foreign-language film Oscar submission.

The Venice Days title, which The Hollywood Reporter's Boyd van Hoeij called "a nail-bitingly good time," centers on two men in love with the same woman at a time when Colombia's paramilitary groups were supposedly disarming after decades of armed conflict.

Colombia has never won an Oscar, but it came close in 2016 when Ciro Guerra's Embrace of the Serpent (El Abrazo de la Serpiente) became the first Colombian picture to land an Academy Award nomination. Embrace won more than a dozen awards, including prizes at Cannes and Sundance.

The only other Colombian-born talent with Oscar nominations are actress Catalina Sandino Moreno, for her lead performance in the U.S.-Colombia co-production Maria Full of Grace (2004), and directors Amanda Micheli and Isabel Vega, for the 2008 short documentary La Corona.

Berlin-based Films Boutique handles international sales for Guilty Men.

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