LA PAGA
Interview with Vladimir Durán: the incredible story of La Paga, the first film from Colombian Ciro Durán
Ciro Durán (1937–2022), a mythical figure of Colombian cinema, had lost all traces of his very first film. His son, Vladimir Durán, a filmmaker himself, shares in this interview how he succeeded, with some teamwork, in recovering a copy of La Paga (1962), screened in Cannes Classics in what closely resembles an international world premiere.
La Paga is your father’s first film. In which context did he film it?
My father self-produced La Paga in 1962, when he was 23 years old. He arrived in Venezuela in 1959, right after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and the capture of Havana. It was an era of great hope for Latin American youth.
He was from a traditional and catholic village in Colombia, near the Venezuelan border. After completing his studies in biochemistry at the National University of Colombia in Bogotá, he developed a passion for the theatre and existential thinking, that deeply impacted him. Upon the death of his father, he felt free to dedicate himself fully to cinema.
He then moved to Venezuela, a cosmopolitan and prosperous city at the time, where he joined a group of intellectuals. He took acting classes with Román Chalbaud, a major figure in Venezuelan theatre in the 1950s–1960s, and became involved in local film industry unions. He eventually returned to the Colombian Andes, not far from where he grew up, to make this first film.
What influenced him?
He produced this film as a very dialectical montage, greatly influenced by Soviet cinema classics that he watched religiously at the film library. Along with Marina Gil, the mother of his first son, they developed the film as a shared work, in collaboration with the actors and technicians.
Like many other films of that era, this one was also deemed subversive by the censors and was shown only one time in Caracas. Shortly thereafter, his political affiliations led to him being put in prison for just under a year.
“I discovered a very specific film, with the peasant archetype, and the political head archetype, greatly influenced by Soviet Montage. Working of the land, farming conditions, male-female relationships. A feminist film before its time.”
What became of the film?
After this period, my father returned to Colombia to produce and direct a big-budget western. He thought La Paga (which means “the payday”) was a lost film.
He died in 2022. In the lead-up to his death, my brothers and I spent a great deal of time by his side. We spent many hours talking about his filmmaking, his political views, his life. It was a very significant time. The idea of finding La Paga was born in that moment.
How did restoration of the film unfold?
My older sister, Esther Durán Gil — to whom the restoration is dedicated, as she unfortunately passed away — was Venezuelan. We initiated a search with the Cinemateca Nacional de Venezuela, that fully collaborated and found a copy in its archives.
Bringing this copy back to Colombia was not easy. I received support from the Colombian Film Fund, and I formed a partnership with the Colombian Film Heritage Foundation. They handled the restoration, under my management, and in co-production with my mother, Joyce Ventura, who had produced all of my father’s films except this one.
It was a long process, as the negatives were in very poor condition. But the result is magnificent: a 4K digital restoration. This Cannes Classics screening is practically a world premiere.
