Barrio Triste
STILLZ / Colombia & United States / 2025 / 89 min
Banger of the year! A breathless and trippy hybrid film sensation, shot on a VHS tape in Medellín by four young punks. Produced by Harmony Korine and featuring a new score by Arca.
Four young punks steal a VHS camera from a journalist and document their own rampage in a hybrid film set in Medellín in 1987, which most of all resembles something it is not: a found footage-documentary. At least until it shifts gears again and transforms into a trippy horror film.
In the late 1980s, Medellín was considered the most dangerous city in the world. And the Colombian metropolis has rarely looked as raw and chaotic as it does in ‘Barrio Triste’, where the young gang’s recordings of themselves alternate between breathless vandalism, semi-documentary social realism, stoned slow cinema, and enigmatic scenes of an almost hallucinatory power. You’ve rarely seen anything like it, but the team behind it is also all killer, no filler: Director Stillz is known for his music videos for Bad Bunny, the film is produced by CPH:DOX winner Harmony Korine, and Arca has created its original score. See it and/or die.
