The Kings of the World

Five boys live on the streets of Medellín. The eldest is Rá; the others are Culebro, Sere, Winny and Nano. None has family or a home to go back to. One day a letter comes for Rá: a piece of land left by his grandmother is to be returned to him; the state is restoring land to families displaced during the years of conflict. The five set out. They go by truck, on foot and by hitching. The land on the paper is far away and reaching it takes days. When they arrive, other people are living on it. Laura Mora directs. It is a Colombian production. The film won the main award at the San Sebastián Film Festival. There are no professional actors in the cast; most of the boys were chosen from young people living in similar conditions. The process behind the narrative is real; the restitution of land to displaced families in Colombia has gone on for years and often comes to nothing. The form lies between realism and dream; the narrative moves at times into wholly imagistic passages. The people met along the way make its sections and each meeting shows a separate world. The narrative does not avoid showing violence but does not make a spectacle of it. Who it is for: viewers who like Latin American cinema and road narratives. Who it is not for: the register is heavy, the ending without hope, and the narrative at times abstract.