The souls nor the eyes

Pacho, now 70, was forced to leave his village over fifty years ago due to violent events, and has never been able to return. One day, while gazing at an old photograph—that reminds him of the last memory he has of his home—he feels an intense longing to go back and reunite with those he left behind. But faced with the impossibility of such a return, Pacho creates a world of his own, where he imagines himself back in his village, reunited with his past, seeking healing for the deep scars left by violence.

When he arrives at this village, which seems to be abandoned, he is greeted by faces that have been waiting for him for a long time. These figures, born from the past and brought to life through Pacho’s eyes, guide him as he walks the empty streets. Through the power of playful imagination, Pacho breathes life into these lost souls, hoping to reframe an archival image from seventy years ago—one that has come to symbolize the beginning of Colombia’s violent modern history. In reimagining his own return, Pacho faces not only the weight of his personal past, but also the collective trauma of an entire country, whose violence has been etched into a single, unchanging image over and over again.