Merthyr Rock 2012

The documentary El extraordinario viaje de Carlos y Alvin is about other ways of seeing the world and a friendship that can help us shed stereotypes and stigmas in relation to blindness. Directed and produced by the BBC Mundo journalist, Andrea Díaz Cardona, it tells the true story of Carlos and Alvin, born in Colombia and the Bahamas, respectively, but with parallel lives: after meeting by chance, they realised that they were both premature babies and became blind as the result of the same medical error.

Duration: 18 minutes

Andrea Díaz Cardona, the director and producer of the BBC Mundo documentary El extraordinario viaje de Carlos y Alvin, tells the story of Carlos and Alvin, who, despite being born in different countries, by luck met and discovered that they had parallel lives: they were both premature babies and became blind as the result of the same medical error. Both were self-taught musicians, live alone in Canada and are refugees with restrictions on visiting their own countries, despite which they decided to visit the country of the other. Díaz Cardona will talk to José Carlos Cueto, also a BBC Mundo journalist.

In Noche negra, Pilar Quintana (Colombia) returns to the untamed and exuberant Colombian Pacific that she portrayed so convincingly in the acclaimed novel La perra. In her latest book, the protagonist finds herself alone for four days in a setting that is both terrifying and fascinating. She feels threatened not only by nature, but by the people around her. As well as her work as a writer, Quintana has recently edited the second issue of the Biblioteca de Escritoras Colombianas. In conversation with Cristina Fuentes La Roche.

Those who are surrounded by violence end up with scars. Violence kills but it also harms in many other ways. In Los que quedan,Yolanda Ruiz looks at the survivors, those who carry the physical and emotional burdens of violent events: a girl obsessed with revenge, a woman who decides to kill her children and commit suicide, a man who has been looking for his twin brother who disappeared 39 years ago… Testimonies to reflect on the need to attend to the mental health of a country afflicted by violence. In conversation with Andrea Díaz Cardona.

We share a coffee with the writer Gustavo Rodríguez. A traditional Jerico home will open its doors for a meeting with the author. He will talk about his new novel: Mamita. In conversation with Javier Mejía.

After waking up hungry and hungover, Cosiaca the wandering hustler arrives by chance on a coffee plantation in Jerico where, by fast talking and with a talent for song, he manages to get food and accommodation by pretending to have known the famous singer, writer and legal expert Ñito Restrepo. He charms some and alienates others, but his story is blown when the real singer appears, prepared to unmask the swindler, while the feared local gang, the Cachonegro, surrounds the plantation, bent on dark intentions.

Both the essayist Carlos Granés and the economist Bruce Mac Master have taken on the responsibility of analysing our time and our continent. With El rugido de nuestro tiempo, Granés continues his work of scrutinising the present, and comes to the conclusion, one shared with other commentators, that we live at a time of ideological and geopolitical disorder. In his more recent book, La agenda de la desestabilización. Colombia en la mira, Mac Master takes on one of the most pressing problems of our times: destabilisation, looking at the matter through the Colombian lens. Although these two authors perhaps do not have all the answers, their questions nonetheless open the way to a conscious reflection on the times in which we live. They talk to Tatiana Vásquez

Streamed event

Justicia is the first novel by Janne Teller (Denmark) in 11 years. Known far and wide for books such as Nothing, the writer has needed two decades to finish this book, which she began when she was working as a UN diplomat. She will talk to Cristina Fuentes La Roche about this book, which has what the author calls “the mother of all wars” —the Palestinian-Israeli conflict— in the background. It tells the story of the complex relationship between a father, a UN representative, and his activist daughter, whose killing he struggles to come to terms with. In conversation with Cristina Fuentes La Roche.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

First comes love, then falling out of love, and then after a necessary process, healing; after that one is ready to love again. Después del amor, nosotras is the first book by Virginia Petro De León, a collection of poems illustrated by Eloísa Castro, in which the words live a life worn down by pain, while healing comes on slowly. She will talk about the scars of a heart that has healed with Lu Beccassino, author of the work of non-fiction Si nos enseñaran a amar.

Streamed event

After listening to Karen Hao (USA), our view of artificial intelligence will never be the same. AI has come to stay, and nobody doubts that it can make certain tasks easier. Even this text could be generated by ChatGPT and few would notice. But nothing ever comes for free. First, because of the huge quantities of energy that this process consumes; and second, because the dark side of AI’s creators and the technological race is being revealed by researchers such as Hao, author of Empire of AI. In it, she examines the companies that act like empires, the exploitation of resources, and the underpaid workers from the global South who compile and filter data. She will talk to Andrés Roldán.

Simultaneous interpretation from English to Spanish available

We share a coffee with the writer Pilar Quintana. A traditional Jerico home will open its doors for a meeting with the author. She will talk about her new novel: Noche negra. En conversación con Andrés Valencia.

How did the first Christians, in the years when the faith was developing, conceive the image of Christ? How did this image evolve in the first three centuries of Christianity?Juan Esteban Constaín (Colombia) has carried out an extensive investigation in preparation for his most recent book, El hijo del hombre, a historical and literary essay on early Christianity. However, not all his research went into the work. At this masterclass he offers an aesthetic and symbolic reading of the iconography of Jesus, with the projection of images of frescos found in Roman and Syrian catacombs, photos of mosaics, tablets and other images rescued from his work, which take us back to the days in which faith began to flow through the image of Jesus Christ.