Manuel lives with his parents in Colombia’s countryside. While the military and the guerrilla rebels fight each other in the area, Manuel and Julián are always playing soccer. After Manuel receives a new ball for his birthday, it gets kicked off to a minefield. They will do everything to recover it.

Colombian cinema had a strong festival presence in the last decade, way before The Embrace of The Serpent’s success. This little gem is a good example—a disarmingly human look at the armed conflict through the candid eyes of a kid, with echoes of Malle’s Au Revoir Les Enfants and Iranian neorealism.