Right at the Colombian-Venezuelan border (by the Caribbean, at La Guajira State), when it was closed by presidential command, Diana Ipuana along with her husband Chevrolet and brother Jorge are scraping a living stealing what they can from those who are crossing on the trails near their desert ranch. The day both men are killed in an assault, Diana (due to give birth any day) has to face up to the pain of her loss, the greater hardness of a life alone and the need to rediscover herself to reinvent her in order to survive. Diana must test the resilient power of her wayuu femininity and learn to expand her own borders. In the midst of this situation she finds herself "obliged" to shelter a badly wounded young fugitive who arrives at her door as well as an overly-talkative Venezuelan woman fleeing from a motorbike driver who tried to abuse her. Corruption, the difficulties of accessing health care, education and water and the challenges faced when three cultures try to coexist are, together with the problems thrown up by the closing of a border, the subtle background themes of this beautiful directorial debut, dominated from the beginning to the end by the strength of the indigenous (Wayuu) womanhood.
This is a film so current in this contingency as it is timeless in its questioning of the human. "La Frontera" (The border) is the feature film debut by Barranquilla director David David, a minimalist film that proposes a story of otherness, empathy and resilience set in the Colombian Guajira.
