Generales

"Los Nadie" (The Nobodies) the feature-film directorial debut by UdeA's School of Communication alumnus Juan Sebastian Mesa, has received a number of accolades at several international film festivals. The film was awarded the Circolo del Cinema di Verona Audience Award at the 73rd Venice International Film Festival and received a prize of 5000 euros.

For the first time a Colombian film reaches the Venice International Film Critic’s Week, a competition that selects seven debut films from filmmakers around the world to be evaluated based on their novelty and originality.

After its successful premiere at Venice, and after participating in several other film festivals including the Cartagena International Film Festival (FICCI), the Films in Progress Touluse and the Santiago International Film Festival (SANFIC) held in Chile, “Los Nadie” will hit movie theaters nationwide on September 15th.

The film is a haunting portrayal of Medellín's youth, young people whose lives revolve around the street art and the punk scene, and dream of escaping the city. “During my college days, my friends and I embarked on a road trip across South America. Although we didn’t have a definite destination, we had the aim of reaching Buenos Aires, Argentina. However, we let the road take us anywhere. The same thing happened when we were making the film, we made it step by step until it was completed,” Mesa said.

Neither the director nor the producers ever imagined that what started as a short film, would end up becoming a movie. After gaining support of the Film Development Fund (FDC) and while the short film was being shot, Mesa and his colleagues realized that the story they wanted to tell, as well as the characters and the locations, merited making a feature film. 

Los Nadie tells the story of five friends who, during their late adolescence full of intense restlessness, astonishment, unexpressed tenderness and manifested rage, survive in the margins of Medellín: a city that attracts and excludes at the same time, a city that seduces them with promises but also pushes them away with hostility. Music, street art and friendship are their weapons of resistance in the hope of a rite of passage that is able to transform them in something different.

"The story revolves around a generation of disenchanted dreamers that feel the need to embrace the unknown and to explore the world by themselves, in order to escape from the problems and the violence that surrounds them on a daily basis, offering at the same time a portray of the so-called anarcho-punks, one of the most enigmatic and radical movements of our time," the Colombian filmmaker said.

Ernesto Correa, coordinator of the Audiovisual and Multimedia Communication program at the UdeA School of Communication, says the film blurs the line between fiction and reality. “All of the actors have a natural talent and some of them have gone through similar experiences to those of the characters. The director uses many of his characters to portray his own life experiences”, he said.

“I really enjoyed making this film. I feel very identified with the character, there is a lot of me in it,” says Diego Pérez, who plays Camilo "the Rat" in the film. 

“Los Nadie” was made in a very collaborative manner. This is a film made entirely by friends, from the director and producers, to actors, musicians and set designers. All of them contributed their skills, creativity and expertise to make the film.