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 "excerpt": "Pepe (2024) is an experimental film by Dominican director Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, narrated by the ghost of a hippo from Pablo Escobar's Colombian zoo; it won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2024 Berlinale.",
 "snippet": "Pepe (2024) is an experimental film by Dominican director Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, narrated by the ghost of a hippo from Pablo Escobar's Colombian zoo; it won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2024 Berlinale.",
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 "markdown": "# Pepe (2024 film)\n\n**Pepe** is a 2024 experimental film by Dominican director Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, narrated from beyond the grave by the ghost of a hippopotamus descended from the animals that [Pablo Escobar](https://www.edgepedia.org/pablo-escobar) imported to his Colombian private zoo. A co-production of the [Dominican Republic](https://www.edgepedia.org/dominican-republic), Namibia, Germany, and France, it premiered in competition at the 2024 [Berlin International Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/berlin-international-film-festival), where it won the Silver Bear for Best Director, the first Latin American film to receive that award.<sup>[1](https://www.14films.de/en/das-festival/archiv/2024/pepe)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[2](https://nouveaucinema.ca/en/films/pepe)</sup>\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director, screenplay, editing, music | Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias<sup>[3](https://ficunam.unam.mx/pelicula/pepe/)</sup> |\n| Countries | Dominican Republic, Namibia, Germany, France<sup>[3](https://ficunam.unam.mx/pelicula/pepe/)</sup> |\n| Runtime | 122 minutes (some festival listings give 123)<sup>[3](https://ficunam.unam.mx/pelicula/pepe/)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[4](https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2024/films/pepe/)</sup> |\n| Languages | Afrikaans, Spanish, Mbukushu, and German<sup>[4](https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2024/films/pepe/)</sup> |\n| World premiere | Berlin International Film Festival 2024, Official Competition<sup>[5](https://berlinale.1kcloud.com/ep15e5807d3d640d/epaper/WCF_Booklet_2024.pdf)</sup> |\n| Award | Silver Bear for Best Director, Berlinale 2024<sup>[2](https://nouveaucinema.ca/en/films/pepe)</sup> |\n| Production companies | Monte y Culebra, 4 A 4 Productions, Pandora Film, Joe's Vision<sup>[3](https://ficunam.unam.mx/pelicula/pepe/)</sup> |\n| Cast | Jhon Narváez, Sor María Ríos, Fareed Matjila, Harmony Ahalwa, Jorge Puntillón García, Shifafure Faustinus, Steven Alexander, Nicolás Marín Caly<sup>[3](https://ficunam.unam.mx/pelicula/pepe/)</sup> |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### The story and its real basis\n\nThe film takes its starting point from a documented event. In the late 1970s and 1980s, the Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar brought hippopotamuses from Africa to his estate, [Hacienda Nápoles](https://www.edgepedia.org/hacienda-napoles), in the [Magdalena River](https://www.edgepedia.org/magdalena-river) valley. After Escobar's death in 1993, the hippos escaped into the wild along the Río Magdalena, reproduced, and were later declared an invasive species.<sup>[4](https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2024/films/pepe/)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[6](https://apnews.com/article/cf98a01c0f5a8b29ec255a75302f0f97)</sup> In 2009, the Colombian government authorized the culling of one hippo, carried out with military support; photographs of soldiers posing with the body circulated widely and drew strong criticism from animal-rights advocates.<sup>[7](https://wildlifefertilitycontrol.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/colombian-hippos-and-species-management-exploring-the-legal-case.pdf)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[8](https://elpais.com/america-colombia/2024-10-18/el-gobierno-se-estanca-en-su-plan-para-frenar-la-expansion-de-los-hipopotamos-en-colombia.html)</sup>\n\nThe animal was nicknamed Pepe by the Colombian press, a name taken from [Los Pepes](https://www.edgepedia.org/los-pepes), the paramilitary group that hunted Escobar.<sup>[9](https://mubi.com/es-es/notebook/posts/separate-don-t-divide-nelson-carlo-de-los-santos-arias-on-pepe)</sup> In the film, Pepe narrates his own story after his death: captured in a river in Namibia, transported to Colombia for Escobar's zoo, and finally shot as an invasive species. Festival copy describes him as \"the first and last hippopotamus killed in the Americas,\" and the film presents his account as \"authentic and false\" at once, told in fragments as his soul drifts above a river.<sup>[3](https://ficunam.unam.mx/pelicula/pepe/)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[2](https://nouveaucinema.ca/en/films/pepe)</sup>\n\nThe director has described the film as a reflection on colonialism and displacement. \"Pepe is almost a decolonial philosopher,\" he said at the Berlinale, noting that the film begins in the historical context of apartheid and that Pepe lives throughout on other people's terms: performing for German tourists in Namibia, serving Escobar's megalomania, becoming the monster of Colombian villagers' imaginations, and finally a trophy for a German hunter.<sup>[10](https://kelo.com/2024/02/20/berlinale-film-pepe-presents-a-hippos-experience-of-colonialism/)</sup>\n\n## Form and style\n\n**A polyphonic ghost.** The hippo's voice is spoken by four different actors in three languages, [Afrikaans](https://www.edgepedia.org/afrikaans), Spanish, and the Namibian tongue Mbukushu, in an electronically treated bass register; German also appears in the film.<sup>[11](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/pepe-pablo-escobars-philosophical-hippo-takes-viewers-radically-inventive-journey)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[4](https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2024/films/pepe/)</sup> The opening voiceover is hesitant, with the animal wondering how he knows the words coming out of his mouth, and the narration shifts between languages depending on where the action unfolds.<sup>[12](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311983.2026.2623377)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[13](https://filmmakermagazine.com/127485-interview-nelson-carlo-de-los-santos-arias-pepe/)</sup>\n\nThe film moves between documentary, fable, and essay, mixing fiction, archival material, found audio and news footage, and shifting formats and film stocks. It alternates color and black-and-white, includes night-vision shots and drone images of hippos, and inserts clips of a Hanna-Barbera-style cartoon about a humanized hippo, the 1960s character Peter Potamus, known in Spanish-language syndication as Pepe Pótamus.<sup>[1](https://www.14films.de/en/das-festival/archiv/2024/pepe)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[11](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/pepe-pablo-escobars-philosophical-hippo-takes-viewers-radically-inventive-journey)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[9](https://mubi.com/es-es/notebook/posts/separate-don-t-divide-nelson-carlo-de-los-santos-arias-on-pepe)</sup> A substantial digression follows the elderly fisherman Candelario (Jorge Puntillón García) and his wife Betania (Sor María Ríos) on the Magdalena River, including a local beauty pageant.<sup>[11](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/pepe-pablo-escobars-philosophical-hippo-takes-viewers-radically-inventive-journey)</sup>\n\nCritics and scholars have read the film through its refusal of narrative closure. A 2026 study in *Cogent Arts & Humanities* argues that Pepe enacts [Édouard Glissant](https://www.edgepedia.org/edouard-glissant)'s \"right to opacity,\" declining to turn the hippo into an allegory for colonialism, environmental catastrophe, or animal otherness, and instead sustaining a deliberate obscurity that resists interpretation.<sup>[12](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311983.2026.2623377)</sup> [Sight and Sound](https://www.edgepedia.org/sight-and-sound)'s Jonathan Romney compared its \"impossible narrator\" and electronic voice processing to Mati Diop's *Dahomey*, which won the [Golden Bear](https://www.edgepedia.org/golden-bear) at the same festival.<sup>[11](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/pepe-pablo-escobars-philosophical-hippo-takes-viewers-radically-inventive-journey)</sup>\n\n## Production and director\n\nNelson Carlo de los Santos Arias is a Dominican filmmaker who studied cinema in Buenos Aires and in Edinburgh and holds an MFA in film and video from the [California Institute of the Arts](https://www.edgepedia.org/california-institute-of-the-arts) (2014). His earlier features include *Santa Teresa & Other Stories* (2015), which premiered at FIDMarseille and won the Georges de Beauregard prize, and *Cocote* (2017), which won Best Film in the Signs of Life section of the Locarno Festival.<sup>[14](https://dgcine.gob.do/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/RD-EN-BERLINALE-Who-is-Who-2024_ES.pdf)</sup> He has said he first heard the story of Pepe from the painter Camilo Restrepo in Colombia in early 2017, shortly after finishing *Cocote*, and knew immediately that he wanted to make the film.<sup>[9](https://mubi.com/es-es/notebook/posts/separate-don-t-divide-nelson-carlo-de-los-santos-arias-on-pepe)</sup> He developed *Pepe* while participating in the DAAD artists program in Berlin.<sup>[15](https://iffpanama.ong/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/IFF2025-3.pdf)</sup>\n\nThe film was shot in Colombia and Namibia, with research carried out in both countries, and was produced by Monte y Culebra (Dominican Republic) with co-production by Pandora Film Produktion (Germany) and 4A4 Films (France), alongside Joe's Vision.<sup>[11](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/pepe-pablo-escobars-philosophical-hippo-takes-viewers-radically-inventive-journey)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[12](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311983.2026.2623377)</sup><sup> • </sup><sup>[16](https://www.sansebastianfestival.com/2024/sections_adn_films/7/720895/in)</sup> [Cinematography](https://www.edgepedia.org/cinematography) is credited to Camilo Soratti, Roman Lechapelier, and the director himself, and the sound design to Nahuel Palenque.<sup>[3](https://ficunam.unam.mx/pelicula/pepe/)</sup>\n\n## Release and reception\n\nAfter its Berlinale premiere in February 2024, the film screened at festivals including Toronto and New York.<sup>[12](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311983.2026.2623377)</sup> It was the first Dominican film to compete in the Berlinale's official section.<sup>[17](https://dgcine.gob.do/pepe-la-cinta-dominicana-doble-ganadora-de-fonprocine-llega-a-las-salas-de-cine-del-pais/)</sup> Shellac released it theatrically in France on 1 January 2025,<sup>[18](https://shellacfilms.com/film/pepe/)</sup> and it reached Dominican cinemas on 1 May 2025.<sup>[17](https://dgcine.gob.do/pepe-la-cinta-dominicana-doble-ganadora-de-fonprocine-llega-a-las-salas-de-cine-del-pais/)</sup>\n\nCritical response was divided on the film's method but broadly positive overall. On Rotten Tomatoes it held a Tomatometer score of 64 percent after the Berlinale,<sup>[19](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/berlin-film-festival-2024-movie-scorecard/)</sup> and its Metacritic metascore stood at 66, in the \"generally favorable\" band.<sup>[20](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pepe/critic-reviews/)</sup> Screen Daily called it \"a wildly original work\" with \"a gleefully wanton approach to form, style and story\";<sup>[20](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pepe/critic-reviews/)</sup> Variety found the narration at times \"borderline incomprehensible\";<sup>[20](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pepe/critic-reviews/)</sup> and French critics at AlloCiné gave it an average of 3.5 out of 5 across eleven reviews.<sup>[21](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-325892/critiques/presse/)</sup>\n\n## References\n\n1. [Pepe, Around the World in 14 Films](https://www.14films.de/en/das-festival/archiv/2024/pepe)\n2. [Pepe, Festival du Nouveau Cinéma](https://nouveaucinema.ca/en/films/pepe)\n3. [Pepe, FICUNAM](https://ficunam.unam.mx/pelicula/pepe/)\n4. [Pepe, Film at Lincoln Center / NYFF 2024](https://www.filmlinc.org/nyff2024/films/pepe/)\n5. [World Cinema Fund booklet, Berlinale 2024](https://berlinale.1kcloud.com/ep15e5807d3d640d/epaper/WCF_Booklet_2024.pdf)\n6. [Colombia approves plan to cull roaming hippos linked to Pablo Escobar, AP News](https://apnews.com/article/cf98a01c0f5a8b29ec255a75302f0f97)\n7. [Colombian hippos and species management: exploring the legal case, Laws](https://wildlifefertilitycontrol.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/colombian-hippos-and-species-management-exploring-the-legal-case.pdf)\n8. [El Gobierno se estanca en su plan para frenar la expansión de los hipopótamos en Colombia, El País](https://elpais.com/america-colombia/2024-10-18/el-gobierno-se-estanca-en-su-plan-para-frenar-la-expansion-de-los-hipopotamos-en-colombia.html)\n9. [Separate, Don't Divide: Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias on Pepe, MUBI Notebook](https://mubi.com/es-es/notebook/posts/separate-don-t-divide-nelson-carlo-de-los-santos-arias-on-pepe)\n10. [Berlinale film 'Pepe' presents a hippo's experience of colonialism, Reuters via KELO-AM](https://kelo.com/2024/02/20/berlinale-film-pepe-presents-a-hippos-experience-of-colonialism/)\n11. [Pepe review: a hippo's journey, Sight and Sound (Jonathan Romney)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/pepe-pablo-escobars-philosophical-hippo-takes-viewers-radically-inventive-journey)\n12. [The right to remain opaque: non-human subjectivity and experimental form in Pepe (2024), Cogent Arts & Humanities](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311983.2026.2623377)\n13. [Making the Invisible Visible: Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias on Pepe, Filmmaker Magazine](https://filmmakermagazine.com/127485-interview-nelson-carlo-de-los-santos-arias-pepe/)\n14. [Berlinale Who is Who 2024, DGCINE](https://dgcine.gob.do/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/RD-EN-BERLINALE-Who-is-Who-2024_ES.pdf)\n15. [Estreno Mundial en el Festival Internacional de Cine de Panamá 2025](https://iffpanama.ong/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/IFF2025-3.pdf)\n16. [Pepe, San Sebastián Film Festival 2024](https://www.sansebastianfestival.com/2024/sections_adn_films/7/720895/in)\n17. [Pepe, la cinta dominicana doble ganadora de FONPROCINE, llega a las salas de cine del país, DGCINE](https://dgcine.gob.do/pepe-la-cinta-dominicana-doble-ganadora-de-fonprocine-llega-a-las-salas-de-cine-del-pais/)\n18. [Pepe, Shellac Distribution](https://shellacfilms.com/film/pepe/)\n19. [Berlin Film Festival 2024: Movie Scorecard, Rotten Tomatoes](https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/guide/berlin-film-festival-2024-movie-scorecard/)\n20. [Pepe critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/pepe/critic-reviews/)\n21. [Critiques Presse pour le film Pepe, AlloCiné](https://www.allocine.fr/film/fichefilm-325892/critiques/presse/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 2023 and 2024 › Titles O to Y*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n",
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 "speakable": "Pepe is an experimental film by Dominican director Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias, narrated by the ghost of a hippo from Pablo Escobar's Colombian zoo; it won the Silver Bear for Best Director at the 2024 Berlinale."
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