Tracing Colombia

Tracing colombia

Tracing Colombia will premiere at IDFA 2025, November 14th at DocLab.

“Tracing Colombia is an interactive film experience for laptop and smartphone. It follows a visual artist traveling to Colombia for an exhibition, shortly after the country signs a historic peace accord ending five decades of internal conflict. What begins as a professional trip evolves into a personal and emotional journey as he navigates a land in transformation-and confronts his own position as an outsider.

Struck by the vibrancy of the people and the urgency of the moment, the artist finds Colombians searching for new images and stories to define their identity beyond war. In the National Library, he discovers 19th-century drawings from the Corographic Commission-an early attempt to visually capture the nation’s essence. Inspired, he sets out on his own mission: to reimagine Colombia through drawing, this time at the dawn of peace.

Tracing Colombia is both a portrait of a country reimagining itself, and a personal story of looking, listening, and understanding. It invites the viewer not just to watch, but to reflect and perhaps to change the way they see the world.”

From 2026, the film will be publicly available to watch online at tracingcolombia.com.

Director & art: Jan Rothuizen, Producer: Ilja Roomans for Docmakers, Camera and editing: Stijn van Santen, Animation: Franka Wiggers, Interactive design & development: Juul Spee, Harm van de Ven for Zesbaans, Executive producer: Lies Wijnterp

In 2016, I visited Colombia at the invitation of the Dutch Foundation for Literature to give a presentation at the international book fair in Bogotá. Prior to this presentation, I visited places and people in Bogotá for a series of drawings that were displayed in large format during the fair.

Apart from Narcos and One Hundred Years of Solitude, I knew virtually nothing about Colombia. In the run-up to the peace agreement, I came to know a country where the future felt larger than the past. After the presentation, my drawings were exhibited at the Biblioteca Luis Ángel Arango in the center of Bogotá.

Tracing Colombia is a long-term project that sometimes pauses for a while, but for which I traveled back to Colombia in 2024.