Felipe Aguilar Rodríguez, Gala del Sol, Celina Biurrun, and Jhon Bayron Quintero Valencia attend the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of “Rains Over Babel” at Library Center Theatre. (Photo by Soul Brother/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
By Jessica Herndon
It’s no secret that you should expect the unexpected at the Sundance Film Festival. As the credits roll after the January 26 premiere of Rains Over Babel, Gala del Sol’s dark, hypnotic, and whimsical take on Dante’s Inferno premiering in the NEXT section at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, the audience erupts in cheers as Jhon Bayron Quintero Valencia, who stars as Darla Experiment in the film, sashays down the center aisle of the Library Center Theatre performing in drag. In a shimmering silver bodysuit and matching knee-high boots, Valencia, who delights in drag as Darla Experiment both on and off screen, puts on an extravagant show full of fierce dancing, flips, and lip-synching.
The performance complements the film, an electrifying fever dream from the Spanish Colombian writer-director. Del Sol’s debut feature brims with queer joy and a vivid, neon-drenched lens as life and death play out in a retro-futuristic Colombian purgatory.
Set in the surreal, steampunk-inspired version of Cali — reimagined as the mythical City of Maya — we are invited into Babel, a dive bar for lost souls. La Flaca (Saray Rebolledo), the city’s enigmatic Grim Reaper, reigns supreme and toys with patrons as she dares them to gamble precious years of their lives for the hope of some good fortune. Among the eccentric misfits drawn to the bar are Dante (Felipe Aguilar Rodríguez), desperate to unearth the secrets of his past before his time runs out; Monet (Johan Zapata), a ghost racing against decay to reclaim his body after an accidental overdose; and Timbí (Jose Mojica) and Uma (Celina Biurrun), who embark on a quest to find a lost love. Meanwhile, Jacob (William Hurtado), whose father is a priest, must find the strength to face his fears as Jacob prepares for his first drag performance alongside Darla Experiment.
The idea for the film came about when del Sol sought company from fellow artists during COVID-19. “After six years of living in Los Angeles, I went back to my parents’ house in Colombia, and I was locked in my room for days,” she says during the post-premiere Q&A. “I used to do theater, so I called up a friend to help me gather a group of actors with whom I could work a couple of times a week. I asked them to create a character that helped heal something within them. That’s how we got started. We started doing improvisations, and I began writing Rains Over Babel.”
Del Sol adds that she feels lucky to have had such a long creative process, which, from idea to final film, lasted around four years. “Very few directors get to work with their actors for two years before they start shooting, which is what happened to me,” she says. “By the time we started shooting, [the characters] were almost like a second skin to them, which was amazing.”
Del Sol’s audacious vision manifests in a riot of colors, textures, and emotions. Sol’s film stitches together magical realism and gritty urban energy, where drag queens, rebels, animals, and wayward souls find solace. Del Sol’s signature tropical-punk aesthetic pulses through each frame. During certain moments in the film, a talking lizard joins Timbí and Uma on their journey, and the two find themselves searching for a musician in a themed motel.
“It’s a real sex motel,” del Sol says when asked by an audience member where the scenes were filmed. “It’s called the Kiss Me Motel. If you are ever in Cali, you can go spend a night there!” The crowd laughs at this plug before another audience member comments on how they’d never seen a film that was so “confidently weird.” He goes on to ask if del Sol had ever felt she should “dial back” the peculiarity. “We just made a film that we wanted to watch and that was a natural reflection of what we were feeling at the time when we were writing it,” she says. “I guess it was also trusting the process. I love weird things. We all do. We thought it was something that hadn’t been done out of Latin America, and we thought it was necessary.”
Del Sol pauses before emphasizing that she believes filmmakers should be fearless, especially regarding inclusivity. “Do not be afraid to touch on some topics that are still very much taboo in Latin American culture.” Adds Darla Experiment, “It is very meaningful to me to be here in the U.S. where we are still having troubles in my community, the LGBTQIA+ community, and which has been relegated to certain spaces. It is very important to be representing the Afro-queer community.” A daring and stylish entry, Rains Over Babel is an ode to love, resilience, self-discovery, and reinvention amid societal pressures.
