“A Poet” is the official submission of Columbia for the Best International Feature Film for the 98th Academy Awards in 2026. A co-production between Columbia, Germany and Sweden.
Oscar Restrepo (Ubeimar Rios) is a Columbian poet inching toward 60 having won several poetry prizes early in his “poetry career” never making the leap to prominence but then again what poet ever does! Self described as a perpetual dreamer with suffering the cornerstone of his poetry. Extremely passionate and over metaphorical and emotional about poetry he struggles on having lost his creative edge living with his mother in an apartment paid for by his brother. At one point he asks his teenage daughter Daniela (Alisson Correa) to lend him a small amount of money indicative of how hard up he is. What true poet can be hindered by gainful employment!
Forced by his penury and the threat of being evicted from his apartment he takes a teaching job at a high school and with the best intent and drinking liquor from a Thermos in class an even bigger shipwreck awaits him as a result of his attempts to develop his 15 year old student Yurlady (Rebecca Andrade) into a great poet obfuscated by his incredibly bad judgement. A metaphorical iceberg awaits! Through successive gaffes fuelled by an excess of alcohol the viewer will be breathlessly cringing watching if Oscar sinks.
A tragedy poetically recounted with large doses of humour and satire about poetry, poets, the “management of poetry”, justice, the legal system, Columbian poverty stereotypes and the institutional knack for refusing to take responsibility.
Can Oscar salvage any respect from his family and Yurlady? Can he redeem himself? Is he ruined as a human and a poet? Does he survive like Ernest Borgnine or perish like Shelly Winters in The Poseidon Adventure?
Thank goodness for some low key but highly effective comedic moments.
Rios is the epitome of a poet in a meltdown. Andrade pays the disinterested Yurlady perfectly more interested in the material world scamming money for purple nail polish and sparkles and groceries for her family than in poetry. The scene with her obese family matriarchs gobbling chicken legs smuggled out from the Poetry Fair reception is riddled with absurdity and is a classic Larry David “Curb Your Enthusiasm” moment.
The scene in the urinal where Oscar and Efrain (Guillermo Cardona) peek to see whose is more manly an excellent foil to mounting cinematic misery.
80% tragedy. 20% comedy.
You may agree with Oscar that suffering is indeed a cornerstone of poetic inspiration, at least as far as he is concerned.
You may watch the trailer here https://vimeo.com/1142155488?fl=pl&fe=vl
Directed by Simón Mesa Soto.
RKS 2026 International Film Rating 76/100.
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