Catalina Arroyave Restrepo (Colombia)

Catalina Arroyave Restrepo is a Colombian director, screenwriter, and acting coach. She is a co-founder of Rara Colectivo Audiovisual, a film production house based in Medellín, and the director of Los días de la ballena (Days of the Whale), a film that premiered at SXSW and was selected in more than 20 international film festivals. In 2021, the film was sold to HBO and nominated in six categories of the Macondo Awards of the Colombian Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, including Best Screenplay and Best Fiction Film. Catalina has been a casting director and acting coach on films such as Libertad, by Clara Roquet, Amparo, by Simón Mesa Soto, and Mi bestia, by Camila Beltrán, among others. She is currently working as a director and developing her second feature-length fiction film, Arde un reino, a project supported by the Colombian Film Development Fund in 2022 and 2023, the French National Center for Cinema and Animated Image (CNC), and the Nouvelle Aquitaine Region Film Support Fund.

Arde un reino A Catholic teenager experiences her sexual awakening in a school run by nuns. When she disobeys the rules that have governed her actions up to that point, she experiences a crisis of faith, convinced that a dark force wants to take over her spirit.