DIRECTOR: Simon Mesa Soto
STARRING: Ubeimar Rios, Rebeca Andrade, Guillermo Cardona
RUNNING TIME: 2 hrs 4 minutes
LANGUAGE: Spanish
PLOT: Oscar Restrepo’s lifelong devotion to poetry has earned him neither recognition nor peace. Now aging and increasingly erratic, he embodies the worn cliché of the forgotten poet lingering in the shadows. His encounter with Yurlady, a modest teenager with raw talent, rekindles a spark of purpose as he guides her toward her own voice. Yet the question remains: by drawing her into the turbulent world of poets, is he offering her a gift or a burden?
GENRE: Comedy
FILMING LOCATION: Medellin, Colombia
To check out all previous submissions for Colombia, click HERE.
STARRING: Ubeimar Rios, Rebeca Andrade, Guillermo Cardona
RUNNING TIME: 2 hrs 4 minutes
LANGUAGE: Spanish
PLOT: Oscar Restrepo’s lifelong devotion to poetry has earned him neither recognition nor peace. Now aging and increasingly erratic, he embodies the worn cliché of the forgotten poet lingering in the shadows. His encounter with Yurlady, a modest teenager with raw talent, rekindles a spark of purpose as he guides her toward her own voice. Yet the question remains: by drawing her into the turbulent world of poets, is he offering her a gift or a burden?
GENRE: Comedy
FILMING LOCATION: Medellin, Colombia
To check out all previous submissions for Colombia, click HERE.
FILM REVIEW:
(This review contains spoilers.)
“This time it's different."
Simón Mesa Soto’s A Poet opens not with triumph but with exhaustion, tracing the unraveling presence of Oscar Restrepo, a man whose devotion to verse has yielded neither recognition nor peace. He embodies a familiar archetype, the forgotten poet exiled to the margins, yet Mesa Soto resists cliché by emphasizing the silences and failures that have accumulated around him. What emerges is not a romantic portrait of the misunderstood artist, but a study in erosion: the slow diminishment of a man who once aspired to transform his life through language but now struggles to maintain even the smallest connections.
The appearance of Yurlady, a teenager with an unassuming but genuine gift, unsettles this pattern of decline. In their encounters, Oscar briefly rediscovers a sense of purpose, guiding her through the fragile beginnings of expression. These moments hover between mentorship and projection: he wants to nurture her voice, yet one cannot shake the unease that he is passing on a burden rather than a gift. Yurlady becomes both mirror and catalyst, reflecting back to him the possibility of renewal while simultaneously exposing the weight of his failures.
Underlying this dynamic is the film’s quieter but more devastating thread: Oscar’s failures as a father. His poetic vocation, once imagined as a path to transcendence, now collides with his inability to be present in his family’s life. Mesa Soto captures this through small ruptures, gestures that begin tenderly but collapse under the weight of habit, apologies that dissolve before they can take root. The city surrounding him amplifies the futility: its indifference becomes a stage on which his cycles of self-sabotage repeat endlessly. Oscar wants redemption, but his attempts remain aspirational rather than transformative, leaving him caught between intention and incapacity.
A Poet is less a meditation on art than an exploration of human insufficiency. The film asks what it means to strive for betterment when one’s patterns are too deeply ingrained to break. In Oscar’s instability between fleeting clarity and recurrent collapse, Mesa Soto situates poetry not as salvation but as metaphor: a promise of meaning that falters in the face of lived reality. The film’s enduring power lies in this paradox, its refusal to offer redemption while still affirming the stubborn, tragic dignity of trying.
(This review contains spoilers.)
“This time it's different."
Simón Mesa Soto’s A Poet opens not with triumph but with exhaustion, tracing the unraveling presence of Oscar Restrepo, a man whose devotion to verse has yielded neither recognition nor peace. He embodies a familiar archetype, the forgotten poet exiled to the margins, yet Mesa Soto resists cliché by emphasizing the silences and failures that have accumulated around him. What emerges is not a romantic portrait of the misunderstood artist, but a study in erosion: the slow diminishment of a man who once aspired to transform his life through language but now struggles to maintain even the smallest connections.
The appearance of Yurlady, a teenager with an unassuming but genuine gift, unsettles this pattern of decline. In their encounters, Oscar briefly rediscovers a sense of purpose, guiding her through the fragile beginnings of expression. These moments hover between mentorship and projection: he wants to nurture her voice, yet one cannot shake the unease that he is passing on a burden rather than a gift. Yurlady becomes both mirror and catalyst, reflecting back to him the possibility of renewal while simultaneously exposing the weight of his failures.
Underlying this dynamic is the film’s quieter but more devastating thread: Oscar’s failures as a father. His poetic vocation, once imagined as a path to transcendence, now collides with his inability to be present in his family’s life. Mesa Soto captures this through small ruptures, gestures that begin tenderly but collapse under the weight of habit, apologies that dissolve before they can take root. The city surrounding him amplifies the futility: its indifference becomes a stage on which his cycles of self-sabotage repeat endlessly. Oscar wants redemption, but his attempts remain aspirational rather than transformative, leaving him caught between intention and incapacity.
A Poet is less a meditation on art than an exploration of human insufficiency. The film asks what it means to strive for betterment when one’s patterns are too deeply ingrained to break. In Oscar’s instability between fleeting clarity and recurrent collapse, Mesa Soto situates poetry not as salvation but as metaphor: a promise of meaning that falters in the face of lived reality. The film’s enduring power lies in this paradox, its refusal to offer redemption while still affirming the stubborn, tragic dignity of trying.
