Reading the credits on The Awakening, a Colombian horror film finished after its director died

Spoiler note: this piece uses only the film’s published synopsis, plus one reviewer’s remark about the ending, quoted below.

we recover the magic of a magnificent filmmaker like Jaime Osorio

On October 8, Dread Central posted the trailer for “The Awakening” (“El Despertar”), a Colombian horror film about an elite military unit and a force from the jungle. Its post says the film is co-directed by Jaime Osorio Marquez, Federico Durán and José Luis Rugeles. A Variety report reposted on the sales company Latido Films’ site tells it differently. I wanted to see how far apart those two accounts really are.

What each source says

The announcement on Latido’s site, dated April 17, is a reposted Variety article by Anna Marie de la Fuente, marked as an exclusive. I did not open the original Variety article. It says the film was created, written and directed by Osorio Marquez, who died before fully completing the film. It says the film was completed by Durán, a co-creator and producer at Rhayuela Films, and by the director Rugeles, “alongside the original creative team.” The film page on Latido’s site lists one director, Osorio Marquez, and calls the film his posthumous work.

ScreenAnarchy published the festival announcement on April 16. It says Osorio Marquez died in 2021 after making the film, and that he left the creative process filmed but unfinished. It says Rhayuela Films and creative producer Durán completed it in his absence.

Dread Central’s post is the odd one out. It lists three directors and calls Durán a first-time feature director. Its release details come from the same post: Well Go USA is the distributor, with a digital release on November 10 and Blu-ray and DVD on December 15 exclusively through Amazon. The post does not state a year, and it links no distributor announcement, so those dates are Dread Central’s account.

Why the wording matters

A credit tells a reader who answers for the film. “Directed by” one man who has died, “completed by” two people, is a specific statement. It suggests the shape of the film was set before his death, and that others finished the work. “Co-directed by” three people says something else, because it implies three people made directing decisions at the same time. Osorio Marquez could not have been one of them in the ordinary sense.

I don’t think Dread Central is wrong in any hostile way. A shortened credit line can mislead, and here it points a reader towards a different story about who made the film.

The two Latido pages also disagree with each other on small things. The film page gives a 90-minute runtime and a release date of “Q1 2026.” The announcement says the film world premieres at the Guadalajara festival (FICG), which it dates April 17 to 24. The page lists two cast members, Claudio Cataño and Hilda Ruiz. The announcement lists five, and Cataño is the only name in both. Dread Central’s list is longer again.

The film page carries no date, so I can’t say when it was written. The differences are worth noticing because they may reflect the sources describing the film at different moments.

What critics have said

The ScreenAnarchy reviewer writes that the story “has an ending that really isn’t a conclusion and much gets lost in its vagueness.” The review also says the storytelling is often unclear. I can’t tell from the sources whether that has anything to do with the film being finished by others, and the review doesn’t say so either. Treating a reviewer’s complaint as evidence about how the film was assembled would be a leap.

Latido’s founder, Antonio Saura, is quoted in the Variety report: “With ‘The Awakening,’ we recover the magic of a magnificent filmmaker like Jaime Osorio …” That is the seller speaking.

What is not established

• Which scenes Osorio Marquez shot and which others filmed. None of the sources says.
• What “completed” covered: editing, additional shooting, sound, effects, or some mix.
• Whether Durán or Rugeles is formally credited as a director on the finished film. Dread Central says so. The Variety report on Latido’s site does not.
• Whether the November 10 and December 15 dates are confirmed by the distributor. Only Dread Central gives them in the sources read, with no year.
• Whether the film’s vagueness has anything to do with how it was finished.

My read is that the Variety report’s wording is the one to lean on for credits. ScreenAnarchy agrees on Osorio Marquez as writer-director and on Durán and Rhayuela completing it, but does not name Rugeles. Neither account is independent of the producers. The Dread Central dates may well be right, and I would still treat them as that outlet’s report until a distributor posts them.