After a long night’s shift, Amparo, a single mother of two, returns home to find her children are not there. She soon finds out that her son has been drafted during an army raid and will be sent to the front in a notorious war zone near the border. His fate seems sealed. With only a single day left until his departure, Amparo manages to contact a man who offers to alter Elias' files and get him out. With nothing much on her side, she embarks on a race against time to free her son in a society ruled by corruption.
“AMPARO shows a human drama triggered by a very common situation in Colombia that illustrates the vulnerability of women in a society that has become used to war.
In the 90s and early 2000s, army trucks used to raid the neighborhoods of Colombian cities in search of young men without military IDs (a document issued after military service or a medical deferment that is mandatory for any legal procedure or employment), eager to draft them and send them into combat.
The story is based on my own experience, the moment in my adolescence when I became eligible for the draft. My mother visited a man to illegally change the result of my exams but could not afford his fee. I was scared, and in a moment of despair, I reproached her for the life she had given me and my brother and for her lack of the financial means to save me from having to go away. I still feel remorse for not having appreciated the efforts of a single but brave woman, responsible for two children, my own mother.