SLAMDANCE FILM FESTIVAL 2024 REVIEW! In 2022, election history was made in Colombia as an upstart candidate found himself possibly becoming the country’s next president and overturning decades of rule by one party. That upstart campaign is covered in Sean Mattison and Trevor Martin’s documentary, Petro.
The candidate is Gustavo Petro, a member of Colombia’s socialist party who ran under the “Historic Pact for Colombia” coalition. Throughout Petro, the filmmakers walk us down two distinct paths. The first is Petro’s tumultuous path as a member of the Guerilla organization M-19, and the other takes the camera right into the middle of Petro’s campaign.
If you know the history of Colombia, you know that it was marked by violence for decades. The conservatives ran the country by alleged corruption and strong-arming, and the socialists were furious over blatant election fraud on April 19, 1970. That fraudulent election led to conservatives holding power in Colombia ever since.
In 1985, M-19 laid siege on the Colombian capital and supreme court, which ended in a bloody mess. Attempts had been made to negotiate with M-19, and success was found in 1990, but its members, including Gustavo Petro, have been marked political targets ever since.
Regarding the campaign trail, we get some pretty incredible access to candidate Petro. I suppose the art of documentary filmmaking is that invisible fly on the wall. Mattison and Martin are far from intrusive, allowing Petro’s amiable personality to emerge without feeling like he must constantly play to the camera.
“…Gustavo Petro, a member of Colombia’s socialist party and ran under the banner of the ‘Historic Pact for Colombia’ coalition.”
Let’s also point out that being part of the opposition party is dangerous. There are a couple of shots (no pun intended) of Petro donning kevlar, car windows being shot at, and the angry protests decrying Petro as a terrorist or guerilla.
I have to give kudos to filmmakers Mattison and Martin. They have quite a knack for political storytelling. This is not a propaganda film, as the election already happened, and it really doesn’t go into Petro’s political positions other than that he wants to create a truly bi-partisan administration.
That fact that he is a socialist, his essential role in this campaign is that he is the opposition to a party that’s been in power for a very long time. Politics is a swinging pendulum, and democracy works best when the pendulum finds itself in the center versus the extremes on both ends.
What one gets from the film is the energy that comes from a campaign with all the adulation from supporters and the hatred of detractors. At the same time, Petro wonderfully profiles his opposition with limited interviews and glimpses into those campaigns as well.
Certainly, you can Google the results, but why ruin the surprise? It’s pretty remarkable that Mattison and Martin invested so much time and energy in the Petro campaign, knowing that he could have lost early in the process and not have had an incredible documentary at the end.
Petro screened at the 2024 Slamdance Film Festival. Check our interview with Petro directors Sean Mattison and Trevor Martin.
"…pretty incredible access to candidate Petro."
