After years of absence, Ciro (Alexis Tafur) leaves Bogotá to visit his dying mother. He returns to the Colombian desert of his childhood, Tatacoa, with its desert landscapes and lunar atmosphere. With the matriarch dead, the young man sets off with his father, his mother's corpse loaded onto a mule, in search of the family grave in the heart of the desert.
Aurélien Vernhes-Lermusiaux takes the time and care to observe these ghostly landscapes in his new feature film La Couleuvre Noire (the second after Vers la Bataille), unveiled in the Acid selection of the Cannes Festival 2025.
Spare of words, the beauty of Aurélien Vernhes-Lermusiaux's film lies above all in the creation of a mythology around the figure of the garter snake, a family legend handed down from generation to generation, and one from which Ciro cannot escape - in a last breath, his mother whispers an evasive "Your turn" , before giving up the ghost.
Far from representing a threat or instilling fear, the animal takes on the role of helper and guide. A magical, maternal embodiment of the woman who is no longer with us, she urges the young man to confront his past and move forward into the future, while keeping the myth alive.
At once mysterious and restrained, we have to wait until the end of the film to understand what lies behind the legend, after crucial but quickly elided stages - the mother's funeral is done without any particular display. In the meantime, the film's slowness turns to tedium, leaving us outside this small family circle in search of resilience.
La Couleuvre Noire will be unveiled at the Cannes Film Festival 2025. The release date in French cinemas is not yet known.
Synopsis: After years of absence, Ciro is back in the Colombian Tatacoa desert, at the bedside of his dying mother. As he confronts those he has abandoned and an age-old legacy, the last guardians of the desert prowl a land as sublime as it is fragile.
Cannes Film Festival 2026: The ACID Selection
L’Acid, the parallel section of the Cannes Film Festival that spotlights bold, audacious works—mostly debut features—has just unveiled its lineup. [Read more]
Cannes Film Festival 2026: The ACID Selection
