Colombia 1998, Amparo, a single parent, struggles to free her teenage son after he is drafted by the army and assigned to a war zone. She is thrown into a race against time, but a mother’s love is invincible. Maybe it's also because her name means sanctuary, shelter or one who protects.
"When I started working on Amparo, I realised that my mother was an important figure in my writing. I was a teenager; my mother and I paid a visit to a manager to buy my freedom from the Colombian army. It was very common in the 90s; if you didn’t fulfil your military duties, you could be kidnapped by the army at any time. It was very scary to walk the streets. At the time, Medellín was one of the most violent cities in the world: drug trafficking had destroyed institutional order in the country." (Simón Mesa Soto)
Simón Mesa Soto
Born in 1986 in Medellìn (Columbia). After graduating in audio-visual communication, Mesa Soto obtained an MA in filmmaking from the London Film School. His graduation short film Leidi won the Palme d'Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. Amparo is his debut feature-length film.