# Birds of Passage
**Birds of Passage** (*Pájaros de verano*) is a 2018 epic crime drama directed by Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego, set among the indigenous Wayuu people of the Guajira desert in northern Colombia during the 1970s marijuana boom. It follows Rapayet and his family as they enter the drug trade and are destroyed by the war for control of the business, which costs them their lives and their culture.[1](https://www.pimientafilms.com/en/birds-of-passage/) The film opened the 50th Directors' Fortnight at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and was Colombia's entry for the Best Foreign Language Film category at the Academy Awards.[2](https://ctlatinonews.com/movie-review-birds-of-passage-pajaros-de-verano/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Directors | Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego, following their Oscar-nominated *Embrace of the Serpent* (2015)[3](https://www.nziff.co.nz/2018/auckland/birds-of-passage/) |
| Year and countries | 2018; Colombia, Mexico, Denmark, and France[4](https://www.sansebastianfestival.com/2018/sections_and_films/7/660068/in) |
| Run time | 125 minutes[4](https://www.sansebastianfestival.com/2018/sections_and_films/7/660068/in) |
| Setting | The Guajira desert, 1968 to 1980, during the Bonanza Marimbera, the marijuana trade boom[5](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/birds-passage-first-look-gang-warfare-desert) |
| Languages | Almost all dialogue in Wayuu, with some Spanish and English[6](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-birds-of-passage-review-20190214-story.html) |
| Cannes premiere | Opening film of the Directors' Fortnight, 2018[2](https://ctlatinonews.com/movie-review-birds-of-passage-pajaros-de-verano/) |
| Oscar run | Colombian entry for Best Foreign Language Film; shortlisted among the final nine but not the final five[7](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/review-birds-of-passage-the-tragic-story-of-an-indigenous-colombian-familys-involvement-in-the-drug-war) |
| Budget | $2.8 million, high for a Latin American independent film, which generally run under $1 million[8](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-birds-of-passage-indigenous-take-on-trafficking-20190213-story.html) |
## Spoilers
### Story and structure
The film is based on a true story explaining the origin of drug trafficking in Colombia. In the 1970s, as North American youth embraced hippie culture and marijuana, local farmers in La Guajira almost instantly became "entrepreneurs," and a Wayuu family found itself assuming leadership in the new enterprise. Wealth and power combine with a war between brothers that endangers the family, their lives, and their ancestral traditions.[4](https://www.sansebastianfestival.com/2018/sections_and_films/7/660068/in)
**The opening ceremony.** The drama begins with the Wayuu coming-of-age ceremony for Zaida (Natalia Reyes), who has spent a customary year of confinement under the tutelage of her mother Úrsula (Carmiña Martínez), mastering handicrafts and emerging before her clan in a public coming out that is also a courtship ritual.[7](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/review-birds-of-passage-the-tragic-story-of-an-indigenous-colombian-familys-involvement-in-the-drug-war) In the yonna dance that follows, Zaida wears a bright red robe and men prove they are worthy of marrying her.[6](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-birds-of-passage-review-20190214-story.html) Rapayet (Jose Acosta), an ambitious young man with one foot in his community and another in the rapidly changing Colombia where marijuana offers quick cash, seeks marriage into the respected family.[5](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/birds-passage-first-look-gang-warfare-desert)
**Five acts.** The film is built around a five-act structure, each act accompanied by song and labeled as such: [Wild Grass](https://www.edgepedia.org/wild-grass), The Graves, Prosperity, The War, and Limbo.[5](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/birds-passage-first-look-gang-warfare-desert) A singing shepherd's song bookends the drama, remembering "the story of love, desolation, wealth, and pain… in the place of dreams and memory."[9](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/may/19/birds-of-passage-review-colombia-drug-trade)
## The Wayuu world on screen
The film devotes much of its time to the cultural ecosystem of clan life, offset against the increasingly materialistic world outside. The Wayuu call outsiders "alijunas," and to revel in material goods or neglect ancient customs is to behave like one, an accusation the film levels at many of its characters.[5](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/birds-passage-first-look-gang-warfare-desert) Úrsula is a respected word messenger who reads dreams and sees omens, and her beliefs are girded by fierce pragmatism as she becomes increasingly complicit in her son-in-law's business.[5](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/birds-passage-first-look-gang-warfare-desert) The Wayuu are a matriarchal society, and the filmmakers approached the society from a gender perspective.[10](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/birds-passage-review-finding-common-ground-gang-war-blood-feuds) • [11](https://www.reclaimtheframe.org/post/industry-insights-interview-with-birds-of-passage-director-cristina-gallego)
The matriarch Úrsula Pushaina is, according to Gallego, redolent of Úrsula Iguarán, the matriarch of [Gabriel García Márquez](https://www.edgepedia.org/gabriel-garcia-marquez)'s *One Hundred Years of Solitude*.[12](https://research.reading.ac.uk/ref2021-uoa33-multi-component-output-4-nagib/wp-content/uploads/sites/195/2021/03/nagib-passages-film-culture.pdf) Critics placed the film in that lineage as well, describing it as combining the epic sweep of *The Godfather* trilogy with the magical realism of García Márquez.[9](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/may/19/birds-of-passage-review-colombia-drug-trade)
## Production
**Origins.** Gallego and Guerra began thinking about a film on the Bonanza Marimbera about a decade before release, while working on *The Wind Journeys*, shot partly in La Guajira. Guerra recalled that people told him the Bonanza Marimbera was more interesting than the music story he was filming. Gallego has said the film took shape when listening to stories told by Wayuu tribe members.[8](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-birds-of-passage-indigenous-take-on-trafficking-20190213-story.html) • [2](https://ctlatinonews.com/movie-review-birds-of-passage-pajaros-de-verano/) The collaborators spent ten years writing and making the film.[2](https://ctlatinonews.com/movie-review-birds-of-passage-pajaros-de-verano/)
**Casting and crew.** Aside from the leads, most actors were non-professionals drawn from the community, including at least one former smuggler.[8](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-birds-of-passage-indigenous-take-on-trafficking-20190213-story.html) Wayuu tribe members made up 30 percent of the production.[2](https://ctlatinonews.com/movie-review-birds-of-passage-pajaros-de-verano/) Gallego said the filmmakers sought to get as far as possible from ethnography or exoticism, using the techniques of cinema and universal drama to create characters.[11](https://www.reclaimtheframe.org/post/industry-insights-interview-with-birds-of-passage-director-cristina-gallego)
**Perspective.** The directors wanted to tell the history of narcotics trafficking from their point of view as Colombians, since previous histories had been told from an outsider, American point of view, and they felt the foreign-cinema representation of the drug trade made them uncomfortable.[13](https://www.awardsdaily.com/2019/02/07/interview-directors-ciro-guerra-and-cristina-gallego-discuss-culture-and-history-in-birds-of-passage/) Guerra described the project as an opportunity to use elements of the narco genre to subvert them, a genre he called very macho and very much of and about men.[6](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-birds-of-passage-review-20190214-story.html) • [8](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-birds-of-passage-indigenous-take-on-trafficking-20190213-story.html)
**Key credits.** The screenplay is by María Camila Arias and Jacques Toulemonde, based on a story by Cristina Gallego. David Gallego, who also shot *Embrace of the Serpent*, was the cinematographer; Miguel Schverdfinger edited; Leonardo Heiblum composed the music; and Angélica Perea was production designer.[3](https://www.nziff.co.nz/2018/auckland/birds-of-passage/) The supporting cast includes Jhon Narváez as Moisés, José Vicente Cotes as Peregrino, Juan Martínez as Aníbal, and Greider Meza as Leonidas.[3](https://www.nziff.co.nz/2018/auckland/birds-of-passage/)
## Reception and awards
The film received eleven awards at international film festivals in cities including Cairo, London, Havana, and Lima, and was nominated twenty-two times in categories including best foreign language film and best director.[2](https://ctlatinonews.com/movie-review-birds-of-passage-pajaros-de-verano/) Its documented honors include Best Film at the Habana Film Festival 2018, Best Film with Honorable Mention at the London Film Festival 2018, Best Screenplay at Cairo 2018, Best Art Direction and Best Cinematography at Chicago 2018, Best Film, Best Actress, and Best Music at the Fenix Film Festival 2018, Audience Award and Best Film at Los Cabos 2018 and [Luxembourg City](https://www.edgepedia.org/luxembourg-city) 2018, the Don Quixote Award at Tromsø 2019, and Best Latin American Film at the Ariel Awards 2019.[1](https://www.pimientafilms.com/en/birds-of-passage/) It also won the FIPRESCI Prize for best film.[14](https://www.tvguide.com/movies/birds-of-passage/2000337983/)
Critics received it as a reworking of the crime saga. [Sight and Sound](https://www.edgepedia.org/sight-and-sound) called it one of the most original and intelligent crime movies of recent years, noting that the very idea it can be regarded as a crime movie at all feels radical.[10](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/birds-passage-review-finding-common-ground-gang-war-blood-feuds) [The New Yorker](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-new-yorker)'s Richard Brody described it as an ethnographic thriller whose cultural richness is overwhelming and whose drama is rigorously integrated with its documentary elements.[7](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/review-birds-of-passage-the-tragic-story-of-an-indigenous-colombian-familys-involvement-in-the-drug-war) Reviewers also noted limits: the character of Zaida, vivid at the start, recedes into a mute wife and mother as the plot advances.[15](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/may/15/birds-of-passage-review-ciro-guerra-colombia-marijuana-trade)
## Place in Colombian cinema
Guerra's previous film, *Embrace of the Serpent* (2015), was the first Colombian film to be nominated for an Oscar, and *Birds of Passage* continued its engagement with the damage foreigners inflict on local people, this time with a difference: the American buyers only have to show up and express demand, and the rest is left to the Colombians themselves.[10](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/birds-passage-review-finding-common-ground-gang-war-blood-feuds) The film made the Academy's nine-film shortlist for foreign-language film but not the final five.[7](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/review-birds-of-passage-the-tragic-story-of-an-indigenous-colombian-familys-involvement-in-the-drug-war) The Los Angeles Times framed it as a way of tackling Latin American history with a distinctly Latin American lens.[8](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-birds-of-passage-indigenous-take-on-trafficking-20190213-story.html)
## References
1. [Birds of Passage, Pimienta Films](https://www.pimientafilms.com/en/birds-of-passage/)
2. [Movie Review: Birds of Passage/Pajaros de Verano, CT Latino News](https://ctlatinonews.com/movie-review-birds-of-passage-pajaros-de-verano/)
3. [Birds of Passage, New Zealand International Film Festival 2018](https://www.nziff.co.nz/2018/auckland/birds-of-passage/)
4. [Pájaros de verano / Birds of Passage, San Sebastian Film Festival 2018](https://www.sansebastianfestival.com/2018/sections_and_films/7/660068/in)
5. [Birds of Passage first look: gang warfare in the desert, Sight and Sound (BFI)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/birds-passage-first-look-gang-warfare-desert)
6. [Review: 'Birds of Passage' powerfully subverts the gangster epic, Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/la-et-mn-birds-of-passage-review-20190214-story.html)
7. [Review: "Birds of Passage," The New Yorker](https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-front-row/review-birds-of-passage-the-tragic-story-of-an-indigenous-colombian-familys-involvement-in-the-drug-war)
8. [How Colombia's 'Birds of Passage' directors flip the script on the typical narco movie, Los Angeles Times](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-birds-of-passage-indigenous-take-on-trafficking-20190213-story.html)
9. [Birds of Passage review – powerful Colombian drug trade saga, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/may/19/birds-of-passage-review-colombia-drug-trade)
10. [Birds of Passage review: finding common ground in gang war and blood feuds, Sight and Sound (BFI)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/birds-passage-review-finding-common-ground-gang-war-blood-feuds)
11. [Industry Insights: Interview with Birds of Passage director Cristina Gallego, Reclaim the Frame](https://www.reclaimtheframe.org/post/industry-insights-interview-with-birds-of-passage-director-cristina-gallego)
12. [Realist Cinema as World Cinema (L. Nagib, University of Reading)](https://research.reading.ac.uk/ref2021-uoa33-multi-component-output-4-nagib/wp-content/uploads/sites/195/2021/03/nagib-passages-film-culture.pdf)
13. [Interview: Directors Ciro Guerra and Cristina Gallego Discuss Culture and History in Birds of Passage, Awards Daily](https://www.awardsdaily.com/2019/02/07/interview-directors-ciro-guerra-and-cristina-gallego-discuss-culture-and-history-in-birds-of-passage/)
14. [Birds of Passage, TV Guide](https://www.tvguide.com/movies/birds-of-passage/2000337983/)
15. [Birds of Passage review – dark odyssey to the heart of the drugs trade, The Guardian](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/may/15/birds-of-passage-review-ciro-guerra-colombia-marijuana-trade)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 2015–2019 films › Crime drama and neo-noir films*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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