THE RUST Trailer – 2022 AFI Latin American Film Festival

On a remote coffee plantation in Colombia's Antioquia region, 27-year-old Jorge (Juan Daniel Ortiz Hernandez) works hard on land inherited from his parents, choosing to remain in a profession abandoned by most of his peers in favor of the big city, while caring for his ailing grandfather and anxiously watching as a plague of coffee leaf rust (the dreaded la roya) begins to attack his precious plants. As the village prepares for its annual festival, Jorge looks forward to catching up with long-departed friends returning from the city for a few days' revelry and nostalgia. But confronted with faces and emotions from his past — plus concern for his farm — Jorge's world starts to feel increasingly unstable. With his sophomore feature, Colombia's Juan Sebastián Mesa (LOS NADIE, the top prizewinner at Venice Critics' Week in 2016) creates an indelible, highly specific sense of time and place overlaid by a universal tale that speaks to the experience of young people everywhere torn between economic survival and the places they call home. Official Selection, 2021 San Sebastian and Zurich film festivals; Opening Night, 2022 Cartagena Film Festival. DIR/SCR Juan Sebastián Mesa; PROD Alexander Arbelaez, José Manuel Duque, David Hurst. Colombia/France, 2021, color, 83 min. In Spanish with English subtitles. NOT RATED