COLOMBIA: THE QUEST FOR A NEW LIFE | France 5 | Les Routes de l'Impossible

In Colombia, some roads do not appear on any official map. Deep in the Amazon, trails hacked through the rainforest with chainsaws draw new settlers every year — people fleeing poverty, drug cartels or armed conflict.
To supply these forgotten territories, Don Ever, known as “The Placid One,” Don Miller, “The Charmer,” and Alex, “The Artist,” tackle huge stretches of mud where covering 100 kilometres can take more than 24 hours. “The body is like a machine. The more you work it, the better it runs,” Miller philosophizes.
In the southern mountains, along steep and treacherous roads, twin brothers Emerson and Edwin operate an essential bus service for isolated villages. As children, they had to make their way through firefights between guerrillas and government forces just to get to school. Even today, they refuse the easy money offered by traffickers: “We prefer hard work, because at least it teaches us the value of things.”
Further north, in the lakeside village of Nueva Venecia, residents are battling an invasive plant that is choking their lagoon and threatening their only source of income: fishing.
From the deforested Amazon to regions still scarred by guerrilla warfare and communities largely abandoned by the state, this film tells the story of Colombia’s workers, pioneers and survivors. A Colombia far removed from the clichés, where despite the dangers, people remain fiercely hopeful about the future — and retain their extraordinary zest for life.