A Poet (Simón Mesa Soto, Columbia 2025, 123 min.)

Middle-aged and erratic, Oscar is a failed writer who has given up on life. Unemployed and living with family, he wanders the streets of Medellín in a drunken stupor, lamenting the state of literature in his home country, where he has succumbed to the cliché of the tortured artist. However, the opportunity to mentor a young student offers a chance at redemption, if he doesn't screw it up first. In a performance marked by darkly comic pathos, first-time actor Ubeimar Rios stars in Simón Mesa Soto's Un Certain Regard Jury Prize-winner A Poet, a raw and riotous farce about how good deeds are often met with the universe's idea of cruel and unusually poetic punishment.

Reviews

"Immensely appealing.”

Indiewire

“Very funny."

The New York Times

"A hilarious fable... Both funny and poignant.”

Variety 

"Deftly touches on themes of contemporary importance."

Screen Daily

“This mordant reflection on the place of art in a person’s life, and on the place of the artist in an exploitative society, finds the filmmaker at his most mature and thought-provoking, but also at his funniest. ”

MUBI Notebook

Trailer