Panamanian Ana Elena Tejera, whose poetic debut feature Panquiaco opened IFF Panama in 2020, is currently working on her new fiction film Culebra Cut (Corte Culebra). Daniel Jiménez Cacho (Alejandro G. Iñárritu’s “Baldo”, Lucrecia Martel’s “Zama”) stars alongside D’Angelo Simmonds, a non-professional actor who works as a Colon firefighter in his day-to-day life, and was discovered after a year of intensive casting.
Set in 2000, shortly after the Canal Zone was handed back to Panama, “Culebra Cut” revisits this pivotal moment through an intimate and political lens, examining the scars left on the land formed by nearly a century of occupation.
The film follows a group of Panamanian soldiers as they enter the once-forbidden canal zone for the first time. Among them is a young Panamanian soldier, Ernesto (Simmons), who is assigned to clean up the area around an old military school next to a man-made lake that has flooded and evacuated the entire area due to the construction of a canal.
“Ernesto begins to realize that strange things are happening in this place. He ventures deep into the territory and in the middle of the jungle, meets a mysterious woman who is the leader of the Culebra community, a group that resisted evacuation by taking refuge in old bunkers and mining sites. This encounter forces him to confront both his own wounds and the wounds of the land,” the synopsis says.
“Like many Panamanians, I was nine years old when I first set foot in the former Canal Zone. For almost a century, the territory was occupied by the United States to build and defend the Panama Canal. It was a space filled with checkpoints, fences, and soldiers that quite literally bisected the country,” Tejera said.
“That experience stayed with me viscerally. I’ve been asking these questions ever since. How do we repopulate the land from which we were exiled for a century? How did we, those children, end up carrying the legacy of 14 military bases and minefields that we never chose?”
Tejera said the same site was reoccupied by the United States as a training center about 25 years later. Meanwhile, a U.S. aircraft carrier is crossing the region through Panama (the last time this happened was during World War II) and Venezuelan oil is once again passing through the canal, she said.
“That historical continuity, a profession that never completely left, is the very heart of Culebra Cat. The conflict in this film is Ernesto’s conflict. It is about being mestizo, about growing up between an identity that no longer exists and an identity we never claimed. Living in a realm where the sense of belonging has been destroyed. That’s why it’s so urgent to make this film now,” she said.
Last year, President Trump expressed interest in taking back the Panama Canal from China, claiming it was controlled by China.
Since then, the United States and Panama have formed an “expanded partnership,” increasing the number of joint exercises that the United States can conduct at Panamanian-controlled facilities, including Cristobal Colon Air and Naval Base, Rodman Naval Base, and Howard Air Force Base.
“They haven’t really left. Since April 2025, they’ve been stronger than ever,” said Tejera, who organized an exhibition on the issue at the Panama Canal Museum entitled “1.432 square kilometers of humiliation: Gestures against the evil eye.” It will be held from May 2025 to March this year, and the next one will be held in Taiwan.
Her latest work has attracted many international players as co-producers. “Culebra Cut” is a co-production of Mestizo Cinema (Panama), Fulgurance (France), Tarantula (Belgium), Intra Movies (Italy) and GROM (Netherlands).
In addition to Arte France, the film has received support from major foundations such as Panama’s Fondes Cine, France’s CNC National Film Commission, the World Film Fund, the Audiovisual Fund of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, and the Hubert Valls Foundation.
The project was developed on a prestigious international platform led by the Locarno Film Festival residency and the Venice and Rotterdam markets.
The 14th IFF Panama will be held from April 9th to 12th.
Behind the scenes of “Culebra Cut” Credit: Frank Málaga
La Colmena Production SA
