Filmmaker Pilar Colomé talks about her deeply personal documentary El Viaje en Moto (The Motorcycle Journey) is being considered to represent El Salvador at the 2027 Oscars 🎬🏆. The film traces Pilar's search for her late father's red Vespa 🛵 — and with it, her path through 18 years of silence after his death by suicide. Pilar opens up about how "talking is healing" 🗣️💛, describing the whirlwind 15 days she spent writing the script without stopping, and how the process became both an act of grief work and an advocacy platform for suicide prevention and mental health awareness 🎗️. She traces her father's Spanish roots and unpacks how migration, loss, and inherited sorrow threaded their way into the film's visual language — full of symbolism inspired by Umberto Eco's semiotics 🔍✨. Four years in the making, shot across four countries (Mexico, El Salvador, Spain, and England) 🌍✈️, the film became Pilar's way of transforming private sorrow into something universal — an invitation for others to "speak up, ask for help, and transform silence into companionship" 🕊️.
Pilar Colomé (1970) Salvadoran / Spanish.
Documentary filmmaker, winner of Best Short Documentary at TAFFNY with “Jocelyn and the Coyote”, winner of IBERMEDIA production funds with her author–autobiographical documentary “The Motorcycle Journey” (2026), winner of PIXEL PRO funds with her documentary “From Windward to Leeward”. She is currently producing and co-directing the documentary series “The Path of Life”, and among her productions stand out “El Salvador is Worth It” and “The Hidden Face of the Border”. With a career of 30 years directing and producing, she has also been Post-producer for international streaming series. Teacher, jury member of film funding programs, film activist. In her youth she was national tennis team member of El Salvador and currently does coaching through the teaching of tennis to children and adults, and with her film “The Motorcycle Journey” she has initiated the advocacy campaign “Healing is Speaking” as suicide prevention and mental health.
Social handles:
www.elviajeenmoto.org
facebook: docelviajeenmoto
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/elviajeenmoto/
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