EL SANTO DE SANTA FE

In 2017, Colombian journalist Juan Serrano stumbled upon the story of Father Héctor Gallego, who vanished without a trace in a remote Panamanian village in 1971. What began as a piece of investigative research evolved into a journey into the past. Together with the priest’s sisters, Edilma and Nubia, Serrano reconstructs the life of a man who championed the rights of the *campesinos* (peasant farmers) in the mountains of Santa Fe—and paid a heavy price for doing so.

In Santa Fe, Serrano meets farmers who, for decades, have gathered every June 9th to commemorate the man who changed their lives. Gallego was beaten and imprisoned, and his hut was burned to the ground—yet he remained. He established cooperatives and encouraged the *campesinos* to stand up for their rights, thereby challenging a system defined by generations of exploitation.

In 1999, Edilma traveled to Panama to identify her brother’s remains. A witness had led her to a burial site; the bones and clothing appeared to match. However, DNA analysis provided a definitive answer: the remains belonged to someone else who had gone missing. Edilma never returned to Colombia. Serrano’s film follows her decades-long quest for the truth and explores the enduring memory of a man whose legacy continues to live on in the mountains of Santa Fe to this day.