Barrio Triste

Barrio Triste

A punk horror about teenage gangs in Colombia, produced by Harmony Korine

Teenagers in Medellín steal a camera and begin filming their world of gangs, violence, and mysterious phenomena. Produced by Harmony Korine, this punk horror blends raw VHS aesthetics with a haunting coming-of-age story about growing up with no prospects.

The film contains scenes involving flashing lights and rapid colour changes that may trigger an epileptic seizure in sensitive individuals.

Medellín, the 1980s. A city of poverty, gangs, and narrow backstreets you enter at your own risk. A group of teenage boys with the eyes of war veterans steals a camera from a TV reporter. They begin filming their own world: violence, poverty, drugs, death peering through the window, and endless loneliness. Mysterious lights can be seen above the city, while in the darkness of the poor neighborhoods, you may encounter not only an armed criminal but evil in its purest form. But in a world like this, can evil still shock anyone?

Revolutionary and audacious, “Barrio Triste” is cinema that smells of hot concrete, street dust, gasoline, and dreams of escape. Stillz’s film blends the raw aesthetic of VHS footage with poetry, drama with documentary, horror with magical realism. It is a story without a clear structure. The camera follows a number of characters, ultimately offering a glimpse into a world no one would enter willingly. Stillz, a virtuoso music-video director, has made a film that is both monstrous and beautiful. It is also formally stunning, seemingly chaotic yet meticulously thought through from the first scene to the last. Brutality meets beauty here, while the stolen camera, passed from hand to hand, becomes not only a prize or a toy for the characters, but also a witness to everything that happens. The characters of “Barrio Triste” will be difficult to forget long after the screening. Their sad eyes and life stories contain more truth than many a perfectly crafted line of dialogue.

Stillz has already made waves with “Barrio Triste” on the international festival circuit. His feature debut premiered in 2025 at the Venice International Film Festival, and its triumphant journey through festivals around the world is still underway. If, while watching it, you feel that you have seen this kind of uncompromising audacity somewhere before, there is a reason for that. The film’s executive producer is Harmony Korine, the avant-garde genius who gave the world, among other things, the cult classic “Gummo.”