Born into an unconventional family, Paola grows up between Ecuador and Colombia and finds she doesn’t fit into any one mould. With a unique feminine vision of the world, she has to fight prejudice and struggle for her independence, while her universe is struck by a series of crises.

Life seems normal but not so normal for Paola. From her father, a priest who married her mother and created a family, but eventually abandoned them when his religious dilemmas consumed him, her mother who had to pick up the pieces, reading people’s fates from tiles to put food on the table, her older sister, a one-way street when it came to her life choices, to her other older sister who found her own way of dealing with life, yet became a kind guardian to Paola, small and large conflicts, departures and encounters are repeated throughout Paola’s young life. Based on the autobiographical graphic novel by Paola Gaviria who goes by ‘Powerpaola’, Virus Tropical proceeds like a personal journal, with episodes that take place in constantly shifting daily locations and recurring airport spaces, making us ‘experience’ instead of ‘storytelling’ us the notion of ‘process’ and ‘choices made’ in life. As the gaze of Paola(the storyteller/director) who observes her family story gradually comes to focus on her own, the film shows us that life may seem banal and repetitive from the inside, but in fact is filled with drama consisting of small moments of happiness and realizations or determinations that inspire change when you step back or are able to objectify with time. And for Paola, this is what guides her into a new beginning awaiting her as she is about to set foot into the real world as an independent being. (Hanna LEE)