“Turbia”, the turbulent waterless future of the Colombian city of Cali

The city of Cali in 2023, thirsty for water and flooded with violence and corruption: that is the setting for the Colombian series “Turbia”, which is presented this Sunday at the Series Mania festival in Lille (France).

Located in the Valle del Cauca, near the Pacific coast, Cali receives almost twice as much rain a year as Paris.

But what would happen if the dry season dryed out in an agonizing way, and when it rained, the consequences were an ecological and humanitarian catastrophe?

“Turbia” are six episodes in principle independent, but which are progressively intertwined.

Produced by Contravia Films for the Colombian channel Telepacifico, “Turbia” was shot in 2019, but like so many other film projects, it was stranded due to the covid-19 pandemic.

Colombia plunged into a wave of protests due to the pandemic that has some echo in the series.

“In the end we ended up using real revolt sounds (...) to question the entire environmental situation,” the creator of “Turbia”, Oscar Ruiz Navia, who also directed the first of the six episodes, explained in a video interview with AFP.

“Each episode takes place in a different area of the city,” explained the director.

“The concept was to bring together six film directors who could make a series taking advantage of the current boom,” he added.

In the first chapter, a young couple fall in love even though their relationship is doomed to fail, because of the neighborhoods where they were born.

He in the “dry zone”, dependent on the supply of water by trucks, and she on the “wet zone”, where the pools are still full and the precious liquid is not a problem.

“Turbia”, which will be released in Colombia after her show in Lille, holds a surprise for the viewer: the participation of environmental politician Francia Márquez, who could become the next vice-president of Colombia.

In the third episode, Márquez plays Esnela, a woman who is opposed to being expelled from a poor neighborhood, in the midst of this pressing lack of water.

“We invited her to act in the series, playing a character similar to herself,” explains Ruiz Navia.

- Platforms as lifesavers -

In total, the series has cost around one million dollars. A ridiculous amount compared to the lavish productions presented by platforms such as Netflix or Amazon, in Lille, starting this weekend.

But Óscar Ruiz Navia and his fellow directors of “Turbia” do not deny the profound change that the pandemic has meant in the tastes of the viewer, who seems to have been convinced by small-screen cinema.

A Colombian series, “The Queen of Flow”, has had great international success on Netflix, taking the top audience positions in France or Spain.

“Platforms are becoming that space where we too can communicate with our audience. Because if we wait for a theater exhibitor to program the film for us, then we stay there for years,” he says.

“We belong to a generation of filmmakers who were fortunate enough to participate in festivals like Cannes,” he explains.

Ruiz Navia premiered in 2010 “The Crab Overturn” at the Berlinale.

Carlos Moreno, who directed the second episode, is internationally known for “Escobar, the patron saint of evil”, about the Colombian kingpin, which was distributed by Telemundo in 2012.

César Augusto Acevedo won the Chamber of Gold at Cannes for his debut film “Land and Shadow”.

The other directors are William Vega, Jorge Navas and Santiago Lozano.

jz/it