Q&A with director Simón Mesa Soto moderated by Justin LaLiberty

Tuesday, Jan. 27 2026, 7:00

• Simón Mesa Soto is a Colombian director, screenwriter, and producer. He studied Audiovisual Communication at the University of Antioquia and later pursued a Master’s Degree at the London Film School. His thesis film, Leidi, won the Short Film Palme d’Or at the 2014 Cannes Film Festival. With his next short film, Mother, he was again selected to the Official Competition of the 2016 Cannes Film Festival. Both short films were widely screened at festivals around the world. Amparo, his first feature film, premiered at the 2021 Cannes Critics’ Week, where it won the Louis Roederer Foundation Rising Star Award for its lead actress. The film has toured more than fifty film festivals around the world and won awards in Havana, Chicago, Lima, and Punta del Este, among other festivals. Amparo was the big winner of the Colombian Film Academy’s 2022 Macondo Awards, winning seven awards including Best Director and Best Film. A Poet is his second feature film.
• Justin LaLiberty is the Director of Operations at OCN Distribution, sister company of Vinegar Syndrome, which handles distribution and production for physical home video of nearly fifty film companies. He has worked as a film programmer, archivist, and projectionist for various institutions, including the Jacob Burns Film Center. He is a regular contributor to Screen Slate and Letterboxd's Journal and has bylines in Filmmaker Magazine, Bright Wall/Dark Room, and other publications. You can find him on social media, on most platforms, @j_lalibs.

Tickets: $20 (members), $25 (nonmembers)

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