Aurélien Vernhes-Lermusiaux, director of “La Couleuvre noire”: “In Colombia, I found sensations from my childhood”
For his second film, “La Couleuvre noire,” he tells the internal journey of a young man in the midst of the Tatacoa desert. Meet a filmmaker who has nurtured his desire by filming abroad to resist the standardization of perspectives.
Author: Frédéric Strauss Published on March 28, 2026 at 1:00 PM
“La Couleuvre noire,” the second film by Aurélien Vernhes-Lermusiaux (released on March 25), takes us to an unknown Colombia, far from Medellín and Bogotá, in the Tatacoa desert. The French director talks about this astonishing journey in which he both lost and found his bearings.
Is the Colombia we see in “La Couleuvre noire” an imaginary or real country? It is not a fantasized Colombia. What I show is very close to how people living in the Neiva region today, where I shot “La Couleuvre noire,” actually live. My film is set in La Victoria, one of the small villages on the edge of the Tatacoa Desert.
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[Image Caption: “Cinema allows us to tell how the world troubles us.” Photo by Jean-François Robert for Télérama]
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