Cineplex Takes Latin American Rights to Indigenous Thriller 'The Cry of Serankwa'
Cineplex has acquired the Colombian and Latin American distribution rights to The Cry of Serankwa (El grito de Serankwa), an Indigenous eco-thriller. Distribution rights decide who gets to release a film in a given territory and bring it to audiences there. Variety reported the deal on 9 November 2026.
The film has already collected recognition. It won three industry prizes at the Santiago Film Festival (Sanfic) Industria, where it competed in the WIP Iberoamericana section, a showcase for Ibero-American works still in progress. Those prizes are awards in kind, meaning support in goods and services rather than cash, intended to help finish the film.
The story follows two Iku friends, Marcelo and Aníbal, who are preparing to become Mamus, the spiritual leaders of their people. Aníbal leaves for the city after failing to become a Mamu. Years later he comes back as an engineer working for a mining firm, and his return puts him at odds with the world he left. Much of the film is spoken in the Iku language. The god Serankwa is central to the Indigenous communities it portrays.
The film shows the sacred territories of the Iku, Wiwa, Kogui and Kankwamo peoples in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a mountain range on Colombia's Caribbean coast. Shooting took 40 days in Nabuzimake, a remote mountain village. Most of the cast are non-professional actors, so director Yull Núñez ran a three-month acting workshop before filming began.
Núñez started writing the script in 2017. The project received funding from Colombia's Film Development Fund (FDC) and the ERA Fund of the Manos Visibles Foundation. Núñez is a multi-hyphenate, working as a writer, director and actor. Born on Colombia's Caribbean coast and of Afro-Colombian descent, he has acted in Birds of Passage and played the lead in Ciro Guerra's 2009 film The Wind Journeys.
The Cry of Serankwa is Núñez's second feature. His debut, El Silencio de los Palafitos, earned an honourable mention in a separate Variety report published on 2 November 2026.
For Cineplex, the deal means it will handle the film's distribution in Colombia and across Latin America. The company also boarded another Sanfic title, La Residencia, a day earlier, according to Variety.
For Colombian audiences, the story is the point. A film largely in Iku, shot in the village where many of its cast live, will now have a distributor for the region. For the people who made it, the next step is getting it out of the festival circuit and in front of viewers.
