Freddy Fortich is a film director who, for the second time, will premiere one of his productions at the Cartagena International Film Festival on Saturday, March 19, at 11:40 a.m. at the Bocagrande Mall and Monday, March 21 at 7 p.m. at the Clock Tower.

This time, the director is releasing his new short film Medianoche in the De Indias category, dedicated to highlighting Cartagena works at the festival. 

Medianoche is a story based on the legend of the souls of purgatory told to Freddy by his grandfather, José Domingo Vázquez Anillo, when he was only 12 years old. 

"Medianoche is a story within a story," said Freddy in an interview with AL DÍA News, who also said that he has been working on this story since he was a young boy in school. The first script of his work was to participate in a contest at his school. 

The short film was developed with the support of the Film Development Fund and was recorded in 2019 in the municipality of Arjona, Bolivar with a hybrid team. That is, a group of professionals from the film industry in Cartagena and another group made up of students from the Technological University of Bolivar, who Fortich taught in class. 

"It is a joy and an honor to be able to show this work in a festival as important as FICCI in Cartagena," said the director. 

"I always thought of Medianoche as a tribute to the oral tradition of the Colombian Caribbean, to the stories told by grandparents to their grandchildren," said the director, mentioning that the short film brings together the characteristics of traditional storytelling from the audiovisual point of view. 

The screening of Medianoche is also a reunion with the public for the filmmaker from Cartagena. It's a space where all who participated will be able to see the result of his work, and where the general public will also be able to enjoy the story that has been years in the making.  

Currently, Freddy continues working as a university professor in the areas of film and television. He says that although "filmmaking is hard" it is a place he always comes back to, as he loves being inside the set shooting new stories.

"I like being on set, I like seeing the result of a process on a movie screen. I like to hear the audience's reactions to something that is born on paper and ends up on the screen," he said.