Cartagena, Colombia is a city of movies, where hundreds of scenes have been filmed for productions from different countries. The historic center and the most marginalized neighborhoods have been perfect settings to stories to the big screen 

The 'Corralito de Piedra' has hosted hundreds of independent, commercial, experimental, documentary and other genre films. Here are five great productions that have been filmed in the city: 

1. La Quemada

This 1969 was bolstered by a stellar performance from Marlon Brando. Some of the shots were taken in the Plaza de los Coches, where the statue of Pedro de Heredia stands today. The streets of Cartagena recreated intense scenes of a square full of slaves chained and mistreated with whips. Cartagena would become an imaginary island in the Caribbean, where an English agent (Marlon Brando) was sent to foment a revolt against the Portuguese.

A Palenquero, Evaristo Marquez, also played a role, being the first Afro-Colombian actor to participate in a Hollywood film alongside stars. Today, he is still an icon and always ready to give a quote about the life of Marlon Brando, who led a secretive life off screen up until his death.

2. Love in the Time of Cholera 

Garcia Marquez's incredible stories were also filmed in Cartagena. 

The city was revolutionized with lights, cranes, sets and street closures for the filming of Love in the Time of Cholera, directed by Mike Newell and starring Javier Bardem, Catalina Sandino and Giovanna Mezzogiorno. The people of Cartagena went approximately six months without being able to transit many of the squares that were converted into sandbanks and marketplaces and slave sales, as happened a few centuries ago.

3. The Secret of the Emeralds

In 1966, Spanish director and screenwriter Sebastián Almeida presented the film El secreto de las esmeraldas (The Secret of the Emeralds), where the old Crespo airport, the Plaza de los coches, the Getsemaní market, the Clock Tower and the Cathedral of Cartagena, among other locations in the city, were featured.

The film tells the story of a young Spanish woman who travels to Colombia to take possession of an immense fortune bequeathed to her by her uncle. The inheritance will leave her all kinds of material goods acquired in America, as well as a mysterious cache of emeralds of the highest purity.

4. L'homme de chevet

The title of this French feature film, directed by Alain Monne, was translated for the international market as Cartagena. 

Starring Sophie Marceau and Chirtopher Lambert, L'homme de chevet tells the story of Léo, a former boxer living in misery, hired to take care of a young woman who has suffered a serious accident. The relationship between the two, tense and aggressive at first, eventually transforms into an intense passion in which the city plays a major role. Colombian actress Margarita Rosa de Francisco also stars.

5. Nostromo 

Nostromo is not exactly a movie, but was a series big enough to belong on this list. This British-Italian television miniseries was originally intended to be shown on the big screen, but ended up being filmed as a television series. It was directed by Alastair Reid and Italian Fernando Ghi, and cost about $20 million. Some of the main scenes were shot in the villages of Pasacaballos and Caño del Loro.

In addition to the filmography presented in this list, among the most recent movie filming was for The Red Thread (2016) and Gemini Man (2019), starring Will Smith and directed by Ang Lee.