Buenos Aires – Live streaming and other new technologies for viewing the latest cinema in actual movie theaters may be thinning audiences in much of the world, but South Americans continue to display a passion for enjoying a live screening, especially when it’s cinema dealing with migration. 

The fourth edition of the International Organization for Migration’s Global Migration Film Festival (GMFF), like all those preceding this month’s version, has been a remarkable success across the continent. 

From a Cinemateca in Barranquilla, Colombia, on the Caribbean Sea, to Córdoba in the heart of Argentina. From the Museum of Contemporary Art of Lima, Peru, to a temporary shelter for Venezuelans in Manaus, Brazil, IOM’s annual film festival shone this year in 18 different cities exhibiting over 60 separate screenings. 

GMFF-South America kicked off in Colombia, at a temporary shelter for migrants called Normandía in the capital city, Bogotá.  

There the Argentine documentary Con nombre de flor (Named Like a Flower), directed by Carina Sama, told the story of a transgender woman born in Chile, and later moved to Argentina and Brazil. A second screening of the same film included participation by a leading sexual and gender diversity activist as guest speaker. GMFF in Colombia all popped up in the towns of Riohacha, Valledupar, Cali and Barranquilla. 

Named Like a Flower also screened in Argentina, where the director spoke with the public in the inauguration in Buenos Aires. Screenings took also place in Salta, Córdoba and Santa Fe. Other films screening in Argentina during the GMFF included This is Home, Stranger in Paradise and the Brazilian documentary The Statues of Fortaleza.  

Perú saw screenings of In Times of Rain and The Power of Passport. Venues included the Lima’s Plaza of Memory, Tolerance and Social Inclusion and in the Museum of Contemporary Art. 

Nearly 30 screenings were held in Brazil, where events were staged in seven different cities: Brasília, Boa Vista, Pacaraima, São Paulo, Manaus, Curitiba and Belo Horizonte. In the Amazon, screenings took place in temporary shelters for refugees and migrants from Venezuela. 

Tomorrow (18 December) screenings in Quito, Ecuador, and Montevideo, Uruguay will close out the festival, the same day as the United Nations’ International Day of the Migrant. 

Trailers for the films mentioned: 

• Con nombre de flor 
   
• This is Home 
   
• Stranger in Paradise 
   
• The Statues of Fortaleza 
   
• In Times of Rain 
   
• The Power of Passport

For further information, please contact Sebastián Giuliani at the IOM Regional Office in Buenos Aires, Tel. +54 11 4813 5414, Email: egiuliani@iom.int