Following a series of shorts about “exoticism”, French-Colombian filmmaker Laura Huertas Millán moved on to what she calls her “ethnographic fictions”. Sol Negro is not only the first work in this series, but also her most personal. Turning the premise of traditional ethnography on its head by turning her camera towards her family and herself, she creates a sort of creative laboratory where the figures on the screen are co-writers, co-producers and co-directors in fictionalizing their own words. Huertas Millán touches on complex questions like mental illness, family ties and separation without turning them into exhibits, posing questions to this microcosm of a community of women who are both close and mysterious to her without any preconceived answers ready at hand. A superb blend of captured movements, intimate words and theatrical sparks, Sol Negro reinvents domestic spaces and matriarchy as sites for beauty and resistance.

Charlotte Selb
Programmer and critic