The 4th Movie and Theater Festival, part of the Knowledge Fair celebration for the school’s 75th anniversary, was held May 18-19 and sold out tickets costing COP 50.000-55.000.

The show took place at the Susan Walley de Jaramillo Theater where The Theater Club presented the play “Cuando sea grande quiero ser niño” and later screened the documentary film “The Columbus School 75 Years.”

“The people went out marveled by the quality of the acting, of the music, of the dance, the kids were very professional, people went out very pleased and happy” Marta Vargas, Theater Director, said.

With an auditorium capacity of 270 people and maximum availability of 140 people because of biosecurity protocols the theater club earned around 15,000,000 pesos with the tickets after selling out the functions offered. 

“I think that what also helped the incredible result of sold-out tickets was that we hadn’t done a show in 3 years therefore the people, parents wanted to go to a school spectacle,” Vargas said.

The amount of money estimated to do the play was 10,000,000 mil pesos. At all the festivals, the club asks the school for a loan that will later be paid back with the earnings of the tickets, still, this condition will change in the future. 

“Our expectation never is to sell out all the tickets but we did aspire to sell 60-70% of the tickets but this time we sold out, this had also happened to us in the first festival (…) we have done very well in this festivals,” Vargas said.

The club will open an account called “festivales” where the leftover money from this and future festivals will be saved. The funds will be available for any teacher that needs a budget for artistic activities. The purpose of the new account is to stop asking the school for loans.

“Any teacher that has an artistic idea and needs to build something with a certain budget, can use the budget from the festival, in here no teacher wins extra money or hours, nothing, it is just love for art,” Vargas said. 

Theater students began to prepare for the play in December. Primary student Fatima Pineda was the main character “haim” in the play along with Sofia Gonzales who participates as “umi”. A total of 42 students from high school, middle school, and elementary participated in the show.

“They assume the work as a team, we talk a lot about teamwork, here we don’t work as individuals, we are a team and think if I do something wrong on stage how can you help me get out of it? because it’s not just me, it’s the whole play,” Sofia Gonzales, Grade 6, said. 

Not only did the theater club participate in the show; the school’s band, dance groups, communications team, costume designer, audiovisual team, and many other people from the school made the event possible.

“In the play, I felt nervous and excited, but we knew there was the support from everyone, from the group, from the audience, from the school, and everyone who helped us do the play,” Fatima Pineda, Grade 4, said.