Thick Skin

by Laura Steiner & Soren Nielsen

Colombia

To be able to live in Bogotá, you need skin than can adapt, that can turn reptilian when it doesn't stop raining for weeks and go soft when the woman in the corner shop gives you a free morning coffee.

words from the filmmaker

To be able to live in Bogotá, you need a skin than can adapt, that can turn reptilian when it doesn't stop raining for weeks and that can go soft when the woman in the corner shop gives you a free morning coffee. Thick Skin is a dance film that takes the viewer through the Colombian capital high above the Andes with stylized movement that speaks of life in the bustling city.

I left Bogotá for 12 years and I had made a tacit promise that I was never going to live back home in Colombia. But, thankfully, some promises are meant to be broken. Four years after moving back home I've discovered a bustling, exciting, sexy and tropical city. Bogotá is the ultimate muse. Her people, her jarring ways, her attitude, her cold tropical weather. To live in her means you have to constantly swap your skin: sometimes a tough skin in order to survive and sometimes a beautifully soft one to let all her life in. Thick Skin is an Ode to Bogotá, to my love for her.