Luis Alfonso Ospina Garcés (1949–2019) was a Colombian film director.
Biography
editOspina was born in Cali, Colombia in 1949. He grew up during La Violencia. As a child, Ospina became interested in horror films and Westerns.[1]
Ospina studied film at the University of Southern California before attending the University of California, Los Angeles until 1972. He was involved in student movements against the Vietnam War.[2] During trips back to Cali, he began making films with his childhood friend Carlos Mayolo. Their first short film Oiga, Vea! documented the lives of poor, predominantly Afro-Colombian residents during the 1971 Pan American Games.[1]
Their 1977 film The Vampires of Poverty was a mockumentary satirizing the treatment of human subjects in documentary films. Ospina's 1982 film Pure Blood was a gothic film about a sugarcane tycoon who blood transfusions from young boys. It was inspired by the Monster of the Mangones from when Ospina was growing up. Ospina directed the 1999 neo-noir Breath of Life, co-written with his brother Sebastián. It stars Fernando Solórzano as a detective investigating the murder of a woman played by Flora Martínez.[1]
Ospina died on September 27, 2019, in Bogotá.[3] A documentary about his life, Ospina Cali Colombia, was released in 2023.[4]
References
edit- ^ a b c Bittencourt, Ela (May 16, 2024). "Luis Ospina: the politics of vampires". Sight and Sound. Retrieved June 15, 2024.
- ^ Benítez, José Lorenzo (2008). "Luis Ospina, el artesano y los vampiros: 30 años Agarrando Pueblo (1978)". Guaraguao (in Spanish). 12 (29): 150–156. JSTOR 25596664.
- ^ Rosales Mantilla, Alejandro (September 27, 2019). "Caliwood se queda sin rebeldes con el fallecimiento de Luis Ospina". El Heraldo (in Spanish). Retrieved June 15, 2024.
- ^ Bradshaw, Peter (May 18, 2024). "Ospina Cali Colombia review – giant of Latin American activist cinema explains himself". The Guardian. Retrieved June 15, 2024.
External links
edit- Luis Ospina at IMDb
