Luis Alfonso Ospina Garcés (1949–2019) was a Colombian film director.
Ospina was born in Cali, Colombia in 1949. He grew up during La Violencia. As a child, Ospina became interested in horror films and Westerns.[1]
Ospina studied film at the University of Southern California before attending the University of California, Los Angeles until 1972. He was involved in student movements against the Vietnam War.[2] During trips back to Cali, he began making films with his childhood friend Carlos Mayolo. Their first short film Oiga, Vea! documented the lives of poor, predominantly Afro-Colombian residents during the 1971 Pan American Games.[1]
Their 1977 film The Vampires of Poverty was a mockumentary satirizing the treatment of human subjects in documentary films. Ospina's 1982 film Pure Blood was a gothic film about a sugarcane tycoon who blood transfusions from young boys. It was inspired by the Monster of the Mangones from when Ospina was growing up. Ospina directed the 1999 neo-noir Breath of Life, co-written with his brother . It stars as a detective investigating the murder of a woman played by Flora Martínez.[1]
Ospina died on September 27, 2019, in Bogotá.[3] A documentary about his life, Ospina Cali Colombia, was released in 2023.[4]