Five Colombian queer short films screen at Instituto Cervantes next Tuesday

Five Colombian queer short films screen at Instituto Cervantes next Tuesday as part of the inaugural London Colombian Film Festival

Queer Cartographies maps alternative topographies of Colombian life through five short films exploring desire, identity and resistance. 21 July, 3pm to 5pm.

The London Colombian Film Festival opens next week, and its short film programme is called Queer Cartographies. Five films. Five Colombian filmmakers from an emerging generation. Five approaches to desire, identity and resistance that move well beyond anything the international press usually reports about Colombia.

La perra, directed by Carla Melo, is an animated exploration of female desire and societal guilt, tracing the life of a girl who receives a dog on the day her parents separate, and how that animal becomes her anchor as she grows up in a society that forces women to choose between innocence, motherhood and condemnation.

Vienen las grietas, directed by Daniel Mateo Vallejo, follows Keisi, who wakes one morning with an obsession for escaping into nature. The art gallery where she works is a living nightmare. An exhibited photograph becomes her fantasy.

El mundo es afuera, directed by Pablo Roldán, is a character study about David, a shy sculptor who accepts an invitation to a friend's summer house expecting to read quietly. He finds considerably more than he bargained for.

Salsa, directed by Antonina Kerguelén Román, follows Margarita, a free-spirited salsa lover who leaves her marriage to find her identity. At a beachside party she meets Liana, a deaf tourist. Margarita teaches her to dance. Two women who break barriers to discover who they are.

Flores del otro patio, directed by Jorge Cadena, is set in northern Colombia where a group of queer activists use extravagant, stylised performance to denounce the environmental destruction caused by the country's largest coal mine.

The festival's feature film selection includes Rains Over Babel by Gala del Sol, a queer reimagining of Dante's Inferno set in a retrofuturistic Cali dive bar, which premiered at Sundance and IFFR and screens at Genesis Cinema on Friday 24 July at 6pm with a post-screening Q&A. Variety called it a kaleidoscopic carnival of queerness. Strictly 18 and above.

This is the first edition of the London Colombian Film Festival. The short film programme at Instituto Cervantes is described as a laboratory within it: a deliberate redirection of international attention toward the creativity and resilience at the core of Colombian culture, away from the headlines that flatten it.

Instituto Cervantes, 102 Eaton Square, WC2R 3JJ. Tuesday 21 July, 3pm to 5pm.

Tickets at tickettailor.com