KIKUYO
Hybrid genre short film
SYNOPSIS
Kikuyo stretches its tendrils across my city, moving gently, yet with quiet force, slipping through brick and concrete as we sleep. Kikuyo is an ancestral, omnipresent force, consuming everything in its path: every sidewalk, every childhood memory. We've played, loved, and slept upon its green, soft, comfortable surface, and one day we too will rest beneath its cover.
Kikuyo surrounds Bogotá and cloaks it entirely, becoming invisible to those of us born after its arrival. Nearly a century later, it's impossible to imagine our landscape without it. Pennisetum clandestinum, described in botanical encyclopedias as aggressive, greedy, and bold, is a testament to colonization, a relentless devourer that reshapes the environment.
This film is a poem dedicated to Kikuyo, guided by voices that recount its unstoppable invasion of abandoned houses and buildings in Bogotá. It advances under the cover of night, consuming all that is forgotten. It is an exploration of the intimate ties between colonization and forgetting, a reflection on the silent, restless homogenization created by grasses around the world. Kikuyo tells the story of a forgotten city, devoured by a kind of grass that will continue to thrive long after we are gone.
Country: Colombia
Genre: Hybrid genre short film
Stage: Development
