The UK premiere of an award-winning documentary is coming to London at the end of January. “Children of the Revolution” (Hijxs de la revolución) follows three ex-guerrilla soldiers as they try to make new lives for themselves as civilians. A Q&A with the director of the film will take place after the showing.
Zac Liew
In 2016 the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed a peace treaty with the Colombian government. This marked the end of more than five decades of fighting.
The then country’s president Juan Manuel Santos said, “What we sign today is a declaration from the Colombian people before the world that we are tired or war, that we don’t accept violence as the means of defending ideas.”
“Let no one doubt that we will now pursue politics without weapons,” said Rodrigo Londoño, the top commander of the FARC.
Amanda, Yuheni, and Juan are ex-FARC guerrillas who might be relieved by the peace treaty. The ink from Londoño’s pen laid down hope that these three guerrilla soldiers could put down their guns and go back to normal lives, without the threat of an ambush.
“Children of the Revolution” (Hijxs de la revolución, 2023) shows how five years later this hope has been shattered by the looming threat of paramilitary groups and the trauma that follows them like a shadow.
To date, around 300 ex-FARC troops have been slaughtered since the peace treaty.
Amanda has become a political leader of a group founded by the guerrilla army she fought for, while Yuheni has turned to art to fight the injustices she sees in the world. Juan was attacked by a paramilitary group and decides to take up arms again.
This film won First Prize at the Santiago Alvarez in Memoriam International Documentary Film Festival in 2024, and is directed by Rodrigo Vázquez who moved to London in 1998 and has made documentaries for Channel 4 and Al Jazeera. He received the Rory Peck award in 2003 for “The killing zone” which he filmed in the Gaza Strip.
Vázquez says a key motivation of the film is to show the ex-guerrillas as human beings with all their contradictions and their fragility, which bring them closer to the viewer.
“My relationship with the Colombian guerrillas ELN and FARC began a decade ago, after I was arrested by a paramilitary gang who were engaged in drug trafficking next to the Venezuelan border in the department of Arauca,” he says.
“In 2005 I witnessed how the gang managed to attribute their massacre of civilians to the guerrillas. My first initiation of contact with FARC was motivated by this.”
He adds that the three characters’ determination to stay peaceful despite the threat of death is one of the thematic angles he was most interested to explore in the film.
Vázquez will be taking questions from the audience after the showing at Rich Mix. The Q&A will be chaired by Pablo Navarrete from Alborada Films. The documentary hits Rich Mix in Bethnal Green on Thursday, January 30th. The screening will start at 18:30. It will be shown in Spanish with English subtitles.
(Images from the trailer of “Children of the Revolution” )
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