'Men of God: Between Heaven and Hell', the miniseries that aspires to win two India Catalina Awards

Tonight the Colombian audiovisual industry is celebrating. The guild, from Cartagena, will be honored in the 38th version of the India Catalina Awards, which recognizes the best of national talent for their work on television, film and digital platforms. It was on March 14 when the nominees were known and today, March 20, the names of the winners will be known. One of the selected creations was the miniseries 'Men of God: Between Heaven and Hell' by director Roberto Flores, the same one that now competes in two categories: Best Miniseries and Best Antagonistic Actor in a Telenovela, Series or Miniseries for the performance of Juan Pablo Barragán.

Infobae recently had the opportunity to talk to Flores and Barragán and, in their talk with this portal, the filmmaker and actor highlighted not only the happiness they felt when they learned that they were selected to compete in the prestigious ceremony, but also talked about the importance of supporting unusual productions, those that are outside the mold of what is normally done in Colombia. The series features actors such as Victoria Hernández, Carlos Serrato, Álvaro García, Santiago Alarcón, Ramses Ramos, among others.

'Men of God: Between Heaven and Hell', notably, is a set of six different stories that have in common a religious narrative. The protagonists of the stories, who develop their anecdotes in times ranging from the 16th century to the present day, often collide head-on with the church. The story starring Barragán, called 'Pardon in Advance', tells what happens to a hit man, Joaquín, who, on the orders of his superiors, is obliged to assassinate the town's priest, Miguel, who saw him grow up.

“Sometimes you are a victim of the context in which you are, sometimes victims and perpetrators get confused. Sometimes some of us have to be things that we don't want to be (...) support and I still believe that this character is a victim of his context, because I think he didn't even want to be that antagonistic, he had to become that because his context didn't allow him to do anything else,” Barragán commented in his talk with Infobae about his character.

For Barragán, the key to the success of his performance of Joaquín lies in the truth and, for that reason, he says, the nomination for India Catalina was achieved, however, he rescues, his appointment is the result of the hard work he did, not only he, but the entire team of professionals that made the existence of the miniseries possible. “I think everything pushes, everything adds up, I am a creditor of this nomination because the juries saw in my interpretation the truth and weight that the situation we were counting had to have,” he added.

Flores, director of the production, emphasized that the miniseries has quite a breadth in its subject matter, however, among its subtexts, as he himself mentions it, lies the theme of the human condition.

“Ultimately, it remains the same, the big substantive questions remain, in some cases, unresolved. It is the eternal struggle of men and women between good and evil, that discussion is eternal. As long as we are on this planet, we will always be deciding between one thing and another. The journey between different centuries allowed us to review the institutionality, in this case of the Catholic Church, with the handling of sin and with the role of the priest, a complex role. We found it interesting to see men making that vocational decision from the 16th century until now,” he said.

For Flores, one of the most serious problems of public television is myopia, and in some cases blindness, with regard to what is around. “You bring together the regional channels and the amount of audience you are gathering and the budgets, and that would allow incredible things to be done. But there is an impossibility to work together, there is an inability to create strategies to impact the audiovisual environment in a strong way. That's a shame,” said the director.

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