Manos Sucias
Description
Estranged brothers Jacobo (Jarlin Martinez) and Delio (Cristian Advincula) have little in common but a shared desire to escape Buenaventura, the violent epicenter of Colombia’s drug trade. When they’re reunited to transport a massive load of cocaine up the country’s perilous coastal waters to Panama, Jacobo’s disappointment in his younger brother’s choices is palpable, but to wide-eyed Delio, an aspiring rapper and newly minted father, the rules seem simple enough: no stopping, no whoring and especially no talking about their cargo. Along the dense jungle coastline, simple is anything but safe, and a sudden, brutal act of violence finds the brothers adrift and alone, left to renew their allegiance over half-remembered Afro-Colombian songs and a mutual love of Brazilian soccer god Pelé. In his debut feature, director Joseph Kubota Wladyka evinces a realism like that found in the early films of his mentor, the film’s executive producer Spike Lee. Working with a non-professional cast in the local Buenaventuran dialect, oblique to even Spanish speakers, Wladyka captures the menacing beauty of Colombia’s coast, its waters as murky as the moral truth the brothers navigate: When life’s value is so little, everyone is fair game. –Jackson Scarlett
Brooklyn-based Joseph Kubota Wladyka is a Faculty Fellow and MFA candidate at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He was the 2010 recipient of the Spike Lee Fellowship Award, which provided mentorship and funds for his first feature. That debut, Manos Sucias, is the recipient of two SFFS/KRF filmmaking grants
Trailer
//player.vimeo.com/video/88277498?autoplay=1Film Details
Language Spanish
Year 2014
Runtime 82
Country Colombia/USA
Director Josef Kubota Wladyka
Producer Elena Greenlee, Márcia Nunes
Writer Alan Blanco, Josef Kubota Wladyka
Cinematographer Alan Blanco
Music Scott Thorough
Cast Cristian James Abvincula, Jarlin Javier Martinez
Print Source elenagreenlee@gmail.com