Our Lady of the Assassins

Fernando, a writer who has spent thirty years away, returns to his hometown of Medellín, Colombia, and finds a place transformed by the cocaine trade, where violence, corruption and hired killing have become part of daily life. In a city where death is cheap, he meets Alexis, a teenage assassin who carries a gun and an image of the Virgin. Despite everything around them, the two begin a relationship, and Fernando tries to keep the boy alive in surroundings that seem determined to destroy him.

The film is directed by Barbet Schroeder and was released in 2000, arriving between Desperate Measures and Murder by Numbers in a run of features that also includes Barfly and Reversal of Fortune. Fernando Vallejo wrote the screenplay, adapting his own novel, and Margaret Ménégoz produced alongside Schroeder. Germán Jaramillo plays Fernando, with Anderson Ballesteros as Alexis and Juan David Restrepo as Wilmar, among a credited cast of thirty-four.

On IMDb the film holds 6.8 from around 4,500 votes, while on TMDB it has 7.2 from about 200 votes, a small but positive sample. The production was a Spanish, Colombian and French co-venture involving Canal+ and Tornasol Films, and it runs 101 minutes.