Los Hongos

Ras is a graffiti artist in Cali who works on a building site by day and paints walls at night. Caught taking cans of paint from the site, he is fired, and with no money he goes looking for Calvin, another known street artist in the city. The two of them move through the streets with no fixed destination, leaving something on every corner they find. Oscar Ruiz Navia’s second film takes the rhythm of the two young men rather than building a plot; it was shot on 35mm, the performances are naturalistic and the sound of the city stays inside the film. The title means the mushrooms, a reference to a form of life that can grow underground or on decaying wood. It won the special jury prize in the Filmmakers of the Present section at Locarno and the Hubert Bals fund award at Rotterdam.