La ruta de la lana
Project Focus:
Documentary Direction
Year:
2023
Location :
Nobsa, Boyaca
La Ruta de la Lana (The Wool Route) is a poetic and sensory documentary that emerged as an audiovisual extension of the book of the same name, developed by the research group Taller 11 at the Pedagogical and Technological University of Colombia (UPTC). The film translates the symbolic and territorial universe of traditional weaving in Nobsa, Boyacá into an immersive experience—where image, sound, and rhythm intertwine like threads.
The construction of the documentary was rooted in the social cartography developed in the photobook: interviews, territorial walks, symbols, and meaningful spaces. From these elements, a sensory script was designed—one that focused not on explaining, but on feeling the weaving and its natural rhythm. The camera remained discreet, allowing gestures, textures, and sounds to speak for themselves. The soundtrack was composed using field recordings, digitally processed acoustic instruments, and carefully crafted silences. The editing favored long takes and pauses that invite contemplation, reflecting the unique temporality of the textile craft.
The construction of the documentary was rooted in the social cartography developed in the photobook: interviews, territorial walks, symbols, and meaningful spaces.
From these elements, a sensory script was designed—one that focused not on explaining, but on feeling the weaving and its natural rhythm.
The camera remained discreet, allowing gestures, textures, and sounds to speak for themselves. The soundtrack was composed using field recordings, digitally processed acoustic instruments, and carefully crafted silences.
The editing favored long takes and pauses that invite contemplation, reflecting the unique temporality of the textile craft.
The documentary embraces an aesthetic of observation and care, using subdued palettes, natural light, and wide framing that gives space to both the environment and the bodies within it. The soundtrack was crafted as an emotional extension of the loom—built from on-site recordings, natural ambiences, and a rhythmic logic guided by the thread itself.
Selected in the Film and Digital category of the Festival Internacional de la Imagen 2024 (International Image Festival)— Manizales, Colombia, the documentary has been screened in academic and cultural spaces as both a pedagogical tool and a living archive. It represents a commitment to design as a form of mediation between social research, art, and cultural preservation.
This documentary emerges as a sensitive extension of the photobook La Ruta de la Lana, a contemplative editorial work that laid the narrative and symbolic foundations of the audiovisual universe. Both projects were conceived as complementary, and experiencing them together allows for a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the investigative and creative process.
You can view the full editorial project here:
