The Colloquium of the Birds – Films

El coloquio de los pájaros

Sofía Velázquez Núñez
Peru | 2026 | 60 min
World premiere
Language : Spanish
Subtitles : English, French

There was once a group of Peruvian anarchist poets forced into hiding who, during their secret meetings, sought to assume a non-human identity. Drawing on the famous Persian fable of the same name, the filmmaker translates the power of poetry and friendship into images and sound, serving as def iant stances against the established order.

Once upon a time, a group of birds, led by a hoopoe, set out in search of the mysterious Simurgh, their exalted king. After a long journey, the survivors came to understand that the object of their quest was none other than themselves. Sofia Velazquez Nunez transposes this 13th-century Persian allegory to her native Peru. There, a group of friends, members of the Federation of Former Anarchist Poets, is forced into hiding. Their final gathering, aptly titled “The Colloquium of the Birds”, is filmed. In a DV-recorded archive, they celebrate dance, poetry and friendship before moving on to another world – that of untamed nature. Under their new, non-human identity, they continue to address their contemporaries in voice-over, those trapped in the whirlwind of plagues and the repression devouring the defiant. In this unique collage film, the Peruvian filmmaker interprets fragments of poems through images and sounds, weaving them into the editing as acts of rebellion intended to challenge the established order – which will always find a reason to enlist its vultures.

Emmanuel Chicon

The Colloquium of the Birds, 2026
About Everything There’s is to Know, 2021
Beans, 2021
Dispensing With the Image, the Word, 2019
Three Mourning Tigers, 2019
I Am Eternal, 2014
Portrait, 2013
Altares, 2010