Located in the arid coastal region of Guajira, Colombia, among an indigenous people known as Wayuu, Birds of Passage takes place over a twenty-year period immediately after the years of La Violencia - a bloody civil war where hundreds of thousands were killed - and ends just before the beginning of the narcocracy of the 1980s, led by Pablo Escobar.

The focus on the simple lifestyle of the Wayuuu, as they are guided by conversations with their dead ancestors or rely on the interpretation of dreams to decide courses of action, provides the Birds of Passage with a ghostly atmosphere, occasionally surrealistic.

Cristina Gallego and Ciro Guerra explored the loss of indigenous cultures. The Wayuu has resisted or ignored attempts at assimilation; its moral codes, rites, rituals, and customs have remained unchanged for so long that elders boast of having resisted the English and Spanish empire. It is not just about their rich and justified history of non-conformity and entrenched resistance to Western customs; Birds of Passage is fundamentally about the conflict between tradition and modernity; codes of honour and reciprocity destroyed by greed, materialism and mistrust.

2018: Cairo International Film Festival: Melhor Argumento 
2018: Chicago International Film Festival: Melhor Direcção de Arte, Melhor Fotografia 
2018: Festival de Havana: Melhor Filme 
2018: London Film Festival: Melhor Filme - Menção Honrosa