Anhell69
Theo Montoya / & / 2022
A dark film from the hard core of the Colombian queer community, haunted by the ghosts of its young dead. A generational portrait painted on a pitch black canvas, and one of the great cinematic breakthroughs of the last year.
‘Anhell69’ is perhaps the most striking debut film of the last year. It’s also the Instagram name of one of young director Theo Montoya’s dead friends. A few years ago, Montoya called his friends from the tough and self-destructive queer milieu in Medellín for a casting. He wanted to make a vampire film in a country where there is no more room left in the cemeteries. At the beginning of his dark debut, he lies in the coffin himself and tells how it all went down. Like several of his co-stars, his film is itself trans: a borderless, cinematic work between genres, and a serious shot at where the art of cinema is headed in a century where the lines between film and other performative media are dissolving.