A Colombian film shot entirely in Medellín is about to screen at Sitges, the Catalan festival widely regarded as the world's most important showcase for fantastic cinema — and it will only reach Colombian cinemas after that, on 22 October.
'La Sinfonía de los Bichos Raros' (The Symphony of the Weird Bugs) started life as an idea from Puerto Candelaria, a musical group from Medellín known for genre-hopping, brass-heavy sounds. The story follows Macha, a teenage cockroach who dreams of singing, assembles a crew of fellow insects and enters a human talent reality show. Themes run from friendship and identity to the simple idea that it's fine to be weird.
The project has been reinvented more than once. Creative director Juancho Valencia first staged it as a live musical, then it moved to television, and now it arrives on the big screen under directors Julián Duque and Felipe Martínez. The soundtrack earned a Latin Grammy nomination in 2022 and has racked up over a million streams on Spotify. There's even an interactive book, which has helped build a loyal audience around the characters — a foundation most first films would envy.
The voice cast blends music and screen talent: Puerto Candelaria vocalist Catalina Calle (known as Catt) plays Macha, rapper Kei Linch voices Yeisy the spider, and Rana of Zona Prieta also features, alongside appearances from Jacques Toukhmanian and Luces Velásquez. Puerto Candelaria's musicians appear too, including Eduardo González as the villainous Docx.
Why Sitges matters: founded in 1968, it was the first fantastic film festival anywhere and remains a genuine launch pad for genre cinema. Its guest list over the decades reads like a hall of fame — Guillermo del Toro, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Tilda Swinton, Darren Aronofsky, Park Chan-wook, Anthony Hopkins and many more. For a homegrown Colombian fantasy musical to premiere there, Valencia told El Colombiano, is unprecedented for the country.
For travellers, this is a good moment to put two places on the radar. Medellín — where the film was shot and where Puerto Candelaria's scene is rooted — has become one of South America's most rewarding city breaks, with a thriving music and arts culture that this project captures nicely. And Sitges itself, the coastal town south of Barcelona, turns into a genre-film carnival every October when the festival rolls in, drawing fans, press and industry from around the world. If you're in Catalonia in autumn, it's a surprisingly fun time to visit.
