Hot Docs 2025 - I Dreamed His Name Review

 

Angela Carabali’s directorial debut immediately bursts onto the screen with a reserved force. Beautiful shots of fields and blistering sun rays bleed through the screen. As Angela narrates the details of the dream the documentary revolves around (her father, who has been declared a victim of forced disappearance for the past thirty years, appears and asks her to find him), these long shots– which sporadically feature people phasing in and out of the screen, commonly operating on the foreground as they merge in-and-out of invisibility– set the tone for the film and simultaneously gripped the audience within the dark truths discovered throughout the runtime.

Angela– who shares this road trip of self-discovery and fulfillment with her sister– clearly acknowledges the heavy, delicate tones residing in the subject matter she’s unpacking. This is illustrated through the consistent portraits of empathy that overflow through the screen at an overwhelming degree. This is by no means a bad thing— the displays of emotion and newfound perspectives that are unravelled throughout, effectively act as one of the main reasons why this movie ends up being so poignant from a humanitarian perspective.

When the sisters arrive in Cauca, about halfway through the film, Angela becomes overwhelmed with emotion and spends a moment embracing her sister, feeling the entire weight of their current situation (as well as what it means to their life journeys, individually). Even without context, this display is automatically emotionally resonant: a shot-from-a-distance which shows sisterhood as a thorough representation of camaraderie and eternal friendship. However, when combining this display with the elaborate, DIY filmmaking tactics that were exercised in regards to situational exposition within the fast half of the film (polaroids of people in forced disappearance slowly but surely being flipped over to reveal their identities while Angela narrates; grains of rice being brushed away to reveal archived portraits and photos, further aligning with Angela’s narration) end up creating a long-lasting emotional experience for the audience.

The film never drowns within its sense of intense emotion, it purely complements the subject matter; it feels like witnessing a mental and spiritual healing session alongside all the accouterments that go along with it. Long shots of fields and communities do an incredible job at asserting the tone of the film, as well as allowing the audience to digest the narration and the narrative that is being told within it. An inherently meditative documentary with a shockingly positive outlook on the future, despite the bleak situations it explores throughout.

Hot Docs 2025 runs from April 24th to May 3rd. Tickets can be purchased at hotdocs.ca.