A Poet

What happens when talent isn’t enough, when dreams rust, and the art that once defined you becomes your personal ghost? Simón Mesa Soto delivers a film that hurts precisely because it doesn’t lie: “A Poet” is a ruthless X-ray of creative failure, shot in Medellín with a texture so rough it scrapes your skin as you watch.

Óscar Restrepo is a forgotten poet navigating a sea of alcohol, failure, and the fragmented memories that still tether him to what he once was. There is no romanticism here, no Hollywood redemption or hopeful endings wrapped in gift paper. Mesa Soto brutally dismantles the idea of the “melancholic poet” and shows us something far more uncomfortable: a man who returns to poetry not as a triumph, but as a visceral refuge—a space less contaminated by the market, yet closer to the wound that never heals. The film deliberately crawls through the protagonists’ daily lives, without makeup or adornments, leaving the scar completely exposed.

Facing Óscar is Yurlady, a small ray of morning light who receives his teachings as both a legacy and a warning. Their relationship serves as a painful reminder that transmitting knowledge also means sharing wounds. A Poetis recognized for its brutal honesty and for speaking from the rawest vulnerability: the poet is you, is me, is our accumulated frustrations and our desperate desires not to surrender to the inevitable. This film reminds us that the act of creation, even from absolute ruin, remains a gesture of resistance. Because sometimes, failure also writes verses, and in them, we find the most human part of creation. If you’ve ever felt your dreams slowly rusting, this film will hurt you in ways you didn’t expect. And precisely for that, “A Poet” is a release you cannot miss if you believe that acknowledging failure can be the start of something true.