Irene Vélez-Torres

Bajo Fuego

Sjoerd van Grootheest, Irene Vélez-Torres

Bajo Fuego depicts the unraveling of peace for a group of coca growing peasants in the southwest of Colombia. The film takes the perspective of the ‘cocaleros’ and over a period of 3 years shows how they survive in the midst of the most difficult circumstances. The government delays in fulfilling what it promised in the agreement, economic difficulties arise for families that substituted their coca trees, and the increasing presence of armed groups start to terrorise the region. The promised peace in Colombia turns out to be an illusion when the newly armed groups take control, assassinations occur, and the films’ main protagonists are being threatened with their lives and displaced. Even though peace was supposedly signed in Colombia, Bajo Fuego shows that for many in the southwest of Colombia the war continues.