SXSW 2022: A VANISHING FOG Wins for Best Cinematography

The Colombian film A Vanishing Fog (Entre la niebla) by director Augusto Sandino was recently announced as the winner of the ZEISS Cinematography Award at the 2022 edition of the SXSW Film Festival. The evocative film photographed by Gio Park, in his first feature-length credit, had its North American premiere in the Visions section of the festival dedicated to risk-taking artists in the new cinema landscape who defy traditional categorization in documentary and narrative filmmaking.

A visually-exquisite social parable, with echoes of Buñuel and Jodorowsky, and the first feature film to be shot in the mysterious and formidable Páramo of Sumapaz—the largest swath of alpine moorland in the world—A Vanishing Fog draws on longstanding Latin American traditions of cinematic surrealism and innovative applications of science fiction to tell the story of F, a solitary explorer and guardian of the mountains, condemned by his fate, who strives to protect the mystical and fragile ecosystem he inhabits while caring for his ailing father.  

Facing the imminent return of an unnamed social and ecological violence, F – played by the emblematic and commanding newcomer Sebastián Pii in his debut cinematic role—yearns to overcome his human limitations and plan his escape, knowing all too well that his departure will come with a heartrending goodbye to the only world he has ever known. 

An oblique portal into a surreal and sacred landscape at once otherworldly and completely vulnerable to industrial society’s destructive tendencies, A Vanishing Fog invites audiences to immerse themselves in a sensorial experience of images and sounds that come together to comment on Colombia’s pained histories of human and environmental rights abuses with bold cinematic precision, sensitivity, and innovation. 

With almost no dialogue aside from choice phrases in the fictional indigenous language Sunapakún, Sandino successfully assembles a singular portrait that speaks to the plight of indigenous peoples on a global scale. By removing the language of the oppressors and positioning viewers within an abstract but personal vision of what has become of his country, A Vanishing Fog allows the emotional experience of environmental extraction to resonate on a human level. 

A deeply personal film, perhaps a song or a poem caught between past and future, sanity and delirium, or bliss and tragedy, A Vanishing Fog marks Sandino as an emerging filmmaker to watch on the international festival circuit masterfully mixing sci-fi, arthouse, and genre cinematic elements.

A VANISHING FOG (Entre la niebla). Colombia/Czech Republic/Norway, 2021, 76 min. In English and Sunapakún with English subtitles. Director / Writer: Augusto Sandino; Producer: Augusto Sandino; Executive Producer: Alejandro Santo Domingo, Munir Falah and Nubia Stella Cubillos; Cinematography: Gio Park; Editor: Augusto Sandino; Production Designer: Constanza Romero; Sound Designer: Emil Nygård Olsen; Music: Emil Nygård Olsen; Principal Cast: Sebastián Pii, Mario de Jesús Viana, Christian Ballesteros; Worldwide Sales: Pluto Film.

About the director:
Augusto Sandino is one of the outstanding names in Colombian contemporary cinema. Winner of over 30 international accolades and the National Cinema Award 2000-2005 given by the Ministry of Culture of Colombia for his short Aniversario. His feature debut Gentle Breath (Suave el aliento) won the Special Jury prize and the FIPRESCI award at Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival in 2016. Founding Director of the Auteur cinema symposium manifesto with Carlos Reygadas, Lisandro Alonso and Amat Escalante in 2014, Sandino has also been the producer of his films plus the works La forma del presente (The Shape of Now) at DOK Leipzig Next Masters 2018; La torre (The Tower) at IFFR Bright Future 2018; and Karen llora en un bus (Karen Cries on the Bus) at Berlinale Forum 2011. A Vanishing Fog (Entre la niebla) is his second feature film.