Retratos en un mar de mentiras

Following the death of their grandfather who died in a landslide that engulfed his hut, Jairo and Marina decide to take a trip back into their past to try to recover the land from which they were displaced long ago. Jairo, a roving photographer and Marina, who has lost her memory and is mute, are cousins. Their trip in a beaten up old Renault R4 takes them from Bogotá to the place on the coast where they were outcasts so many years ago. Each day they spend in the car, the more they find themselves being sucked in by the memory of their traumatic past. As soon as they arrive in their home town they are abducted by armed assailants. Jairo is injured while trying to escape. When Marina sees the ruins of her parents’ house she gradually begins to remember the massacre that claimed the lives of everyone in her family except hers. In the end, she receives the deeds to the family home, but Jairo endangers Marina’s life, and she has no option but to continue to fight the ghosts of the past.
“RETRATOS EN UN MAR DE MENTIRAS is a portrait of Colombia, a country that has been embroiled in a civil war for the last sixty years. Several hundred thousand people have been killed and more than four million have been displaced. Nevertheless, Colombians see themselves as being among the happiest people in the world.” Production notes.