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A hippopotamus tells his story with a unique perspective on time.
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A voice that claims to be from a hippopotamus. A voice that doesn’t understand the perception of time. Pepe, the first and last hippo killed in the Americas, tells his story with the overwhelming orality of these towns.
"It seems that the 2024 Berlinale was a gathering for anticolonial narratives with unconventional storytellers. In addition to the Golden Bear winner Dahomey (told by a former idol of the African kingdom of the same name who was repatriated to Benin), we have Pepe, by Dominican filmmaker Nelson Carlo de Los Santos Arias, winner of the Silver Bear for Best Direction at the same festival. What makes its storyteller unconventional? It is, quite literally, the voice of the hippopotamus of the same name, whose story starts in Africa, passes through Pablo Escobar, and ends in his last days of freedom. It is a fascinating exercise in editing that blends reflections on migration, identity, colonialism, and existentialism, blurring the boundaries between fantastic fiction and documentary."