Projects
The Dance of the Shadows
Unable to face the grief after her husband’s mysterious death, Ivonne becomes convinced she’s cursed.
Ivonne travels with her husband, Mauricio and their children to an island in Colombia to celebrate his National Architect Award. On their first day, the tides act erratically and hundreds of dead fish wash ashore. Ivonne, too trapped in her privilege to listen to the warnings of an impending storm, insists on staying. A rain shaman’s storm-preventing dowsing methods lead him to Ivonne’s doorstep, which turns into a consequential encounter when she refuses him entry and obstructs his work. That night, during the island’s worst storm, Mauricio mysteriously dies, and Ivonne becomes haunted by this coincidence. The family returns to Medellin, and Ivonne, unable to face her new reality, is convinced the shaman cursed her, causing her relationship with her children to spiral. Her obsession intensifies when, during the mourning rituals, the last building Mauricio constructed collapses. Terrified of her misfortune, Ivonne flees with her children to find an escape to her curse. Tensions rise when they find the shaman’s farm flooded by a storm. Left with an unresolved paradox of faith and desperate to salvage her family, Ivonne burns the evidence incriminating Mauricio. As the flames die, Ivonne faces the emptiness of grief and her role as a widowed mother.
After my grandfather passed, the building where his mother lived - where our family gathered and our traditions and superstitions were passed down - collapsed. Shortly after, a hurricane with his sister’s name struck this area. For years I’ve tried to find meaning in the proximity of these events and I wonder if I was holding on to meaning in unconnected places to avoid feeling the absence that comes with grief. As I reflect on mortality, I’m drawn to how my family found meaning through religion. Though I’ve rejected it, I find myself coming back to my family’s traditions when faced with death. I wonder if my attachment to our customs is rooted in the comfort, they provide in accepting death as part of life. La Danza de Las Sombras is an intimate perspective into the difficulty of a woman feeling present in her pain. While unraveling the characters’ interiority, the narrative exaggerates supertitions in a way that captures their emotional weight as it surpasses what is real. With a visually evocative approach, the film explores how a family unravels under privilege, grief, and neglect.
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