Barrio Triste begins with a sudden theft. A field reporter in Medellín, Colombia, relays that there have been a number of reports of mysterious lights coming from the sky, accompanied by strange metallic sounds. And then, in a flash, a group of young, shaved-headed teens ᴀssault him, stealing the camcorder in the process. From there, Barrio Triste takes on its form as a found-footage thriller of an uncommon sort, with dollops of science fiction undergirding a loose narrative of abandoned kids messing about the real neighborhood that gives the film its name.

Helmed by pH๏τographer and music video director Stillz, who is more commonly known for his frequent collaborations with music artist Bad Bunny, Barrio Triste has a lot of spiritual commonality with the film’s producer, Harmony Korine. Barrio Triste is EDGLRD’s first project not directed by him, but Stillz’s feature debut is related to Trash Humpers as much in form as in function.

More important than its wayward narrative beats is its clear purpose as a pseudo-documentary, if not in reality than in spirit, shedding light on a generation of late 1980s, early 1990s kids whose disappearances in both literal and figurative ways have left Stillz perpetually traumatized. The director described the feeling like a monster that hasn’t gone away in his introduction, read in absentia, at Beyond Fest in Los Angeles.

Barrio Triste Is Film As An Act Of Witness

True to that context, Barrio Triste is clear in its mission. Wielded by one of the gang members, the camera becomes a window into the chaotic community of a society left to die on the margins, a potential mirroring of Stillz’s own understanding of the lens as witness. The digital grain and blown-out lighting, endemic to the camcorder of the time, easily translates well into Stillz’s pursuit of footage that feels both DIY and otherworldly.

In an early sequence, the gang robs a jewelry store and, in a frantic escape, kills an old male teller. But for the most part, the film is both quotidian and ethereal, capturing in off-handed ways how community perpetuates itself even in times of magnificent strife. The film has a number of striking compositions, perhaps none more so than the sight of a metal band playing on the lip of a mountain of debris where a house once sat.

In between these odd scenes of this decrepit neighborhood is a series of intimate interviews with several of the young characters. Who is conducting these conversations and for what purpose is never made definitively clear, but one of the subjects, Piojo (Juan Pablo Baena), movingly, devastatingly, describes how his parentage and the lack thereof have directly led to the inadvertent abandonment of his own child. The questions in these interviews are distinctly philosophical in nature — “Do you think about dreams?” “What does happiness mean?” — and in response, Piojo and company provide an insight that is at once revealing and unnervingly self-aware.

About two-thirds of the way through, Barrio Triste makes a hard left turn towards science fiction in sequences that are reminiscent of AGGRO DR1FT in their blend of exotic and lo-fi images. Provocative though these moments are, they never quite work as anything but a jarring departure. The film is at its best when it is earnest. Its more experimental choices seem somewhat out of place, and, as a result, the film is never quite the cohesive project it wants to be.

Accentuated by Venezuelan artist Arca’s overwhelming and bombastic score, which explodes in and out without warning, the film is an uncomfortable mix of normalcy and destruction. That discomfort is, at times, thrilling and, at others, excessive. In an extended sequence, the camera follows a character as they walk up and down a dimly lit street while Arca’s score rattles like an alien’s cry. But the continued exhaustion, purposeful though it may be, creates an unwanted boredom.

Nonetheless, the film is mostly quite affecting, magnetic, and mesmerizing. The found footage of the film gives Barrio Triste its clear purpose in capturing a sense of these people’s lives that goes well beyond statistics. These are not simply “gangsters” but teenagers with dreams that have largely been destroyed by a government that has mostly abandoned them, and in that absence, worlds continue regardless. Men will bond, communities will grow, and, for better or for worse, resourcefulness is borne from desperation.

Barrio Triste screened at the 2025 Beyond Fest.