Unwanted Witness – Temoin indesirable (2008)

Directed by: Juan Jose Lozano | 87 minutes | documentary

Born and raised in Colombia, Juan José Lozano also worked for Colombian television, but decided to leave his homeland in the late 1990s. In Switzerland he made several politically oriented short documentaries before making his first full-length documentary, ‘Unwanted Witness’. He is therefore no stranger to the world of political film, but the difference between himself and the object of his documentary is that journalist Hollman Morris continues to live in Colombia despite political opposition, tensions in his private life and even death threats. .

The film begins, as it were, as an argument about the role of the media, and in particular the desired role of independent journalism, which over the years has all but disappeared from Colombian television (and also from the written media). ). People prefer to see as much entertainment as possible; spectacle, and if the president happens to pass by, it comes down to the pressing question of who is more beautiful: Angelina Jolie or the average Colombian woman. The army is also praised in spectacular promotional films as the ‘real heroes of Colombia’. In this way, people in Bogotá do not get to see anything of the hopeless situation that is happening elsewhere in the country. Morris’s weekly program ‘Contravia’ does focus on the misery that the ongoing struggle between the national army, the paramilitaries and the guerrilla movement has entailed for years. Despite widespread recognition abroad, Morris hardly gets national attention with his program. His program is airing later and later and when he wins a prestigious journalism prize in Mexico, it is not mentioned in any Colombian newspaper (it should be mentioned that the main two national newspapers have close ties to say the least. with influential political figures).

Slowly but surely, the documentary takes on a more personal touch through the reflection of Holman Morris’s journalistic work and his own life. The enormous contrast that emerges from this gives the film an extra thematic layer. His luxury house, armored car with driver, nanny and security against the burned down houses of random coca farmers who have nothing left and are not helped or even seen by anyone. It is therefore to give them a face that Morris continues to work. And the women left behind whose husbands or sons have been taken unceremoniously by paramilitary groups; who now wait in despair, fear and uncertainty if and when their loved ones will ever return home. The number of missing is never named, or even acknowledged by the government. Morris speaks of about 20,000 ‘desaparecidos’ so far, with behind each of them a family hoping for a decent burial. Mass graves are being opened to find out who might be identified.

The atrocities that Morris shows do not appeal to everyone and when death threats come in at his address, Holman Morris can no longer deny that his professional and private life have become intertwined, perhaps a little too much. His wife also struggles with this dilemma, she sometimes feels disadvantaged, but she also knows that her husband can never completely put his work aside. The focus of the film shifts a lot in the last minutes to the family story of Morris, which overshadows the earlier message a bit. Still, the political charge is sufficiently present to make the viewer think about the situation in Colombia and the consequences for different population groups.