The Colombian film 'Llueve sobre Babel' features on the fourth day of the Zonazine section
The film, the debut feature film from Colombian-Spanish filmmaker Gala del Sol, has been described as a "tropical steampunk" story
The Zonazine section of the Festival de Málaga continues to screen the most independent and daring films of this year's edition. This time it was the turn of 'Llueve sobre Babel', the story directed by Gala del Sol, which could be enjoyed on this fourth day of the Festival.
The film is a version of Dante's 'Inferno', in which a series of characters have an encounter with La Flaca, death personified, in the mythical bar Babel, weaving an epic and amusing story of love, betrayal, death and redemption.
The press conference that took place after the screening was attended by the director herself, Gala del Sol, the actor John Alex Castillo, the actress Celina Biurrun and the head of wardrobe Felipe Giraldo.
As the director told us at the press conference, the film emerged during the pandemic: "In 2020, I was going to shoot my first film, but it was cancelled because of the pandemic, so after living in Los Angeles for six years I returned to Cali, the city where I grew up. There I started working on a play with very talented actors, but at no point did I think it was going to become a film. It was mainly an exercise in character creation as a healing process. They brought very personal things from their lives and I mixed this within a retro futuristic tropic punk or tropical steampunk imaginary, as I like to call it".
One of the leading actresses, Celina Biurrun, explained that "there was no script, but rather Gala developed the story based on our experiences. It was almost like a biography of each of us.
Regarding the casting process, it was started by John Alex Castillo, who eventually became one of the main characters: "I came to the film as a casting director. I had come from working with very serious directors and I found myself with a bunch of crazy people who caught my attention. We couldn't find anyone for the role and Gala decided that I should do it".
Before the end of the press conference, the director wanted to tell the audience about a part of her life that explains perfectly how she came to make this film: I wasn't really going to be a filmmaker; I was going to be a Catholic nun, something I decided when I was 14. My parents persuaded me to wait a little while and at the age of 16 I got into Buddhism, where I found a nunnery of kung fu nuns in Nepal. However, my mother asked me something that completely changed my existence: "Do you think you're going to reach more people by being locked up in a convent or through your films?" That question from my mother changed everything for me'.
Gala del Sol is a Colombian-Spanish director and screenwriter. Her stories revolve around magical realism and have a punk aesthetic with a tropical twist. She was a finalist for the Student Oscars with 'Passengers in a Trance' (2018), her Chapman University thesis. ‘Llueve sobre Babel' (2025) is her first feature film and she is currently developing her next two projects.
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