The River of the Dog

River of the Dog (2024), by Carlos Gómez de la Espriella, is a poetic journey into the heart of Venezuela’s central plains in the state of Guárico, where the Espino community struggles to live in harmony with, and often against, the forces of nature. Opening with words from Venezuelan poet Eugenio Montejo, the film captures a landscape where life depends on cycles of rain and drought, and where rural families -ranchers, farmers, and laborers- face the loss of basic services and the constant unpredictability of their environment. With little dialogue or narration, the documentary unfolds as a meditation on resilience, ancestry, and the fragile balance between humans and the natural world.

Far removed from the political headlines usually associated with Venezuela today, director Gómez de la Espriella introduces audiences to an isolated community where the presence of the state is almost absent and where modernization has yet to arrive. Here, past and present coexist: traditions echo the lives of ancestral peoples who once crossed these plains, even as villagers adapt to contemporary hardships.

River of the Dog is more than a conventional documentary, it is a poetic experience, revealing the Venezuelan tropic as an “absolute”: not only a place we inhabit, but a force that inhabits and determines us.

Director’s Statement
“It was a privilege to live in the Plains, among plainsmen and an immense natural space. Sharing what I was able to record during this time is a new privilege. Cinema here becomes a life diary: a fallen bridge, a plainsman struggling with his cows, a dog hunting an armadillo. Paradise and hell coexist, and the only possible thing is to observe and share them. The River of the Dog is my way of resisting oblivion.” (Carlos Gómez de la Espriella)

About the Director
Carlos Gómez de la Espriella has a Bachelor’s Degree in Audiovisual Media with a Master’s Degree in Ethnology (ULA, Venezuela). With over 20 years of experience, his films focus on the rural and peasant world. He has directed Las Advertencias de Mandú (2005), Vegueros (2009), and Llanerías (2016). The River of the Dog is his third feature film.

About the Producer
Belén Orsini studied film in New York, with a master’s degree in screenwriting and theater training at the Juana Sujo school (Caracas). She has produced and directed works such as Metralleta (2007) and Verde Salvaje (2014).