Who am I?

Ana Cristina Monroy

Colombia / 2021/ 70’

More than a decade after the documentary Este pueblo necesita un muerto (This town needs a dead), its director Ana Cristina Monroy returns to meet the human being who inspired her. ¿Quién soy? is the complex portrait of a person crossed by the need to be himself and surrounded by an environment of misunderstanding, religious fanaticism, and homophobia. If in the first documentary we saw Jesús Emilio Ibarguen assuming a new identity, that of Stefanny, in ¿Quién soy? we meet again with Jesús Emilio, who wants to force himself to be the man that many expect him to be.

Without judging, only accompanying the journey of its protagonist, the documentary offers itself for him to express his doubts, fears, and hopes. Without contempt and always by his side, observant and attentive, the camera shows the rifts in that world in which the character must navigate his days. Stefanny and Jesús Emilio appear as the two faces of longing for belonging and self-acceptance, which inevitably faces on the way with the mirror and the gaze of others, and with that external disapproval that turns into self-contempt. But there is still an inner light in Jesús Emilio / Stefany, and he holds to it to persist in his being.

By Pedro Adrián Zuluaga

Producer: Ana Cristina Monroy | Photography: Jairo Martínez | Sound: José Roberto Jaramillo | Editing: Ana Cristina Monroy

CINEMATECA DE BOGOTÁ / Capital Theatre

Sunday, October 31, 3:00 pm  

Available from October 26th to November 1st, on the Virtual Theatre MIDBO for Colombia and Latin America.