An Empty House Cracks

The unofficial war in Colombia is responsible for the displacement of a thousand people every day. Paramilitaries, the guerrilla army and drug traffickers carry out their war for territories, thus ethnic groups, African-Colombian communities, Natives and peasant farmers become military targets. A new cartography of terror emerges: ghost villages are haunted by the memories of terror and death. Marta Palma is one of the many displaced Afro-Columbians. She was violently chased out of her region of origin, Chocó. Living and working in the port of Turbo, she could hardly support her four children. She finally succumbed to her misery, loneliness and the loss of her husband and died in August 2002. This film is dedicated to her memory. It is a tribute to resistance and a fight for the memory of the mothers, victims of violence and displacement, who died prematurely leaving a country full of orphans. An Empty House Cracks is a personal and intense testimony which gives voice to the too often unheard victims of the war in Colombia. (DOK.fest München)