The 2026 festival circuit just delivered an absolute gut-punch. Directors Juan Miguel Gelacio and Esteban Hoyos García have debuted Five Years, Four Months (Cinco Años, Cuatro Meses), a relentless exploration of Colombia’s decades-long armed conflict. But they aren’t focusing on the front lines. They are pointing the camera squarely at the institutional void left behind.
In a recent review, Variety praised the project as a “moving portrait of a grieving Colombian mother” that successfully “demonstrates an impressive control of tension.” The plot follows Martha, played by Jenny Nava. She has spent exactly five years and four months looking for her missing son, Fabian. The government offers no closure. The institutions are entirely paralyzed.
With no official help in sight, Martha teams up with Sandra, played by Carmiña Martínez. Sandra knows the nightmare all too well. She has been searching for her own missing child for 24 years. Together, the two women venture deep into the dark, unforgiving plains of Vichada. Their dangerous journey highlights the religious and spiritual undertones driving the families of the country’s estimated 100,000 unaccounted victims, according to DMovies.
The emotional weight of the narrative is finally getting mainstream industry recognition. The project is making history this July as the first Colombian film ever selected for the prestigious Crystal Globe Competition at the 60th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. That puts Gelacio and García’s work directly in front of the global market.
For everyday Colombian women forced to become relentless, grief-stricken investigators, the film offers a grim reflection of reality. There are no clean resolutions here. Just two mothers walking into the plains, demanding answers from a country still struggling to count its ghosts.