Director Oscar Ruiz Navia’s second feature is fiercely creative, decisively independent, and assuredly tender. A construction worker by day and a street artist by night, Ras is fired for stealing paint to complete a huge mural next to his house and no longer able to support his mother. He skateboards across Cali looking for Calvin, another young graffiti artist who studies fine arts and is having difficult days since his parents’ divorce and his grandmother’s cancer.
Inspired by the slogans of the Arab Spring, namely “We will never be silent again,” the boys join in a nocturnal movement of artistic defiance. Los Hongos is marked by genuine humor in its earnest depictions of teen spirit and the numurous endearing scenes of familial life. The boys’ prolific bike/board wanderings through the city act as a poem to graffiti culture and cinematic social realism.
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