Mauro Colombo
Director | Director of Photography | Editor
Films
WILD GLEAMING SPACE
Luminoso Espacio Salvaje
2025 · Feature Documentary · 90 min · Panama, Spain (AperturaFilms, Bastian Film)
World Premiere · HotDocs Toronto 2025
The death of his father and the encounter with a corpse on the side of the road trigger the director into an intimate journey through remote places and inner territories, in search of the blurred boundary between life and death — a space where consciousness becomes a living landscape, just beyond the reach of language.
TIERRA ADENTRO
Inland
2019 · Feature Documentary · 70 min · Aperturafilms
Best Film Curacao IFFR Rotterdam 2019
Best Documentary IFF Panama 2019
European Premiere · Rotterdam International Film Festival 2025
Filmmaker Mauro Colombo immerses himself in the Darién Gap, a vast primary rainforest separating Panama and Colombia, where guerrilla fighters, drug traffickers, migrants, Indigenous communities, farmers, wild animals, and local police all cross paths. Beyond observing the people who inhabit this no man’s land, Colombo turns his gaze toward the jungle itself, searching for meaning in the wilderness as a metaphor for the untamed landscape within us.
EL CRUCE
Crossroad
2016 · Short documentary · 22 min · AperturaFilms
A reflection on Panama’s fragile environmental future through the Ngäbe-Buglé people’s struggle against one of the world’s largest mining projects.
HASANKEYF – WAITING LIFE
2010 · Medium-lenght documentary · 52 min · Hagam
Set in the ancient town of Hasankeyf, one of the oldest continuously inhabited settlements in Mesopotamia, the film follows a Kurdish community whose millennia-old heritage is threatened by the waters of the Ilisu Dam, exploring the tension between history, identity, and modern development.
THE CITY OF LIGHT
2008 · Medium-lenght documentary · 52 min · HoboFilms
A documentary exploring psychedelic culture in San Francisco from the 1960s to the present through trance rave gatherings. A journey into an alternative America, where music, ritual, and altered states of consciousness revive an ancient collective quest for spirituality, personal freedom, and inner transformation.
24/12
2006 · Medium-lenght documentary · 37 min · Ronzinanti Cinema
On Christmas Eve, thousands of people gather outside one of Italy’s largest supermarkets, waiting for the doors to open. What follows is a frantic race to buy fresh fish and seafood for the annual holiday feast. A tragicomic documentary that offers a glimpse into contemporary Italian society through the rituals and contradictions unfolding inside a supermarket.
Commissioned Works
(Director / DOP / Editor– Norwegian Red Cross )
A documentary following Red Cross medical teams and healthcare professionals working in high-risk and dangerous environments.
(Director / DOP / Editor – UNDP – GEF, Almanaque Azul)
Two documentaries on the Bosques de Vida initiative, which strengthens the capacities of community-based organizations in REDD+ and participatory mapping. Filmed in Panama and the Darién region, the films follow communities working to protect the forests that safeguard their water resources.
(Director / DOP / Editor– Norwegian Red Cross)
A documentary about HIV in Guatemala and Honduras.
(Director / DOP / Editor– Norwegian Red Cross)
A documentary about malnutrition in Guatemala and Honduras.
(Director / DOP – Albatros Media)
A documentary about children involved in gangs in Ecuador, part of the Mirada de Esperanza series.
(Director / DOP – Albatros Media)
A documentary about Indigenous child laborers in Ecuador, part of the Mirada de Esperanza series.
(Director / Director of Photography / Editor – INAC – BID)
A documentary about The Living Heritage of Panama’s Oldest Neighborhoods
(Director / DOP / Editor – Ponderosa Music&Arts)
The special edition dvd of the homonymous Ludovico Einaudi Album
(Director / Director of Photography / Editor)
A documentary about Don Luis and the Healing Songs of Panama’s Ngäbe-Buglé Culture
(Director / DOP / Editor )
A portrait of photographer Gustavo Araújo through the exhibition curated by Walo Araújo at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Panama in 2013.
(Director / DOP with Gianpolo Gelati – DISCOVERY CHANNEL)
A portrait of an rescue helicopter pilot around the highest mountain of the alps: the Monte Bianco. The silence of the glaciers, of the high walls, of the peaks is absolute as the sense of freedom of the flight.
((Director / DOP with Gianpolo Gelati – DISCOVERY CHANNEL)
A portrait of men working on the tugboats in the Genova’s Pourt. Their duty is to moor the arriving ships and to escort them out to the open sea. No matter what weather conditions are. A job that hides its real dangers in the working relation with nature.
(Director – CORTISONICI) trailer Film Festival Cortisonici
(Director / DOP / Editor – CORTISONICI) trailer Film Festival Cortisonici
(Director / DOP / Editor – CORTISONICI) trailer Film Festival Cortisonici
Art Projects
¿DONDE ESTÁS?(Where are you?)
VIDEO INSTALLATION
¿Dónde estás? (Where are you?) is rooted in experiences lived within the natural landscapes of Panama and reflects on the relationship between human beings and reality. Through observation and contemplation, the sun, the sea, the rainforest, and the rocks cease to be mere landscapes and become mirrors that reveal our relationship with the world around us. In this encounter, orientation is no longer simply a physical necessity but becomes an essential human experience. The question “Where are you?” no longer points to a position in space, but becomes an inquiry into our place within existence.
SHODOW
·10-minute video loop
A shadow cast upon the surface of a tree trunk in the Panamanian rainforest. Nature becomes a space for reflection, where life projects itself onto us, allowing us to see ourselves. The shadow, a presence without substance, suggests a state of transition and invites us to question the distance that both separates and connects human beings with the world that surrounds them.
LAYERS
·10-minute video loop
The image emerges from the encounter of three overlapping dimensions: water, the body, and the rainforest. The submerged camera observes from a space distinct from that of the human figure, while the water’s surface becomes a shifting boundary where perception loses its familiar points of reference.
APPEARANCE
·10-minute video loop
A static view of a tree in the Panamanian rainforest. As sunlight filters through the branches and the wind gently transforms the image, the landscape becomes an invitation to observe. Rather than directing attention toward an event, the work lingers on the quiet unfolding of light, movement, and time.
QUEST
15-minutes 4 videos loop
In the heart of the rainforest, a light slowly moves through the darkness, illuminating small fragments of the forest in its search for a path. As it travels across the four walls, it appears to emanate from the viewer standing at the center of the space. The installation creates an immersive experience in which the search itself becomes a form of orientation.
EAST, SOUTH, WEST, NORTH
15-minute 4 videos loop
In the heart of the rainforest, a light slowly moves through the darkness, illuminating small fragments of the forest in its search for a path. As it travels across the four walls, it appears to emanate from the viewer standing at the center of the space. The installation creates an immersive experience in which the search itself becomes a form of orientation.