Drink the Poison

Nestor is a seminarian consumed by the pursuit of holiness, a young man who believes the devil is at his heels and punishes himself accordingly. When he is found hanged in his bedroom, the only person who can explain what happened is Esteban, his sole friend within the seminary's walls. Under interrogation, Esteban reconstructs the months leading up to the death, and the story that emerges is one of fervor, fear and a closeness between two young men that the institution around them has no language for. Sergio Carreno's Spanish-language short from Colombia, running roughly 25 minutes and featuring Jose Lombana, Andres Ardila and veteran actor Gustavo Angarita, unfolds as a somber mystery about faith turned inward, letting the confession structure reveal how devotion and desire can become indistinguishable, and how deadly the guilt attached to both can be.