Caracas -The award-winning Colombian film ''El abrazo de la serpiente'' drew the attention in the 9th Latin American Film Festival in Venezuela, which includes 22 films from the region.

''El abrazo de la serpiente'', the first Colombian film nominated for the Oscar awards, also has some 30 awards at festivals around the world.
Based on the diaries written by early explorers traveling the Amazonia in the early 20th century, Ciro Guerra's film shows in black and white the immensity of the jungle.

The river is a kind of common thread of the story that to show the intricacies of Latin American indigenous cultures uses the meeting of shaman Karamakate with German ethnologist Theodor Koch-Grunberg and US biologist Richard Evans Schultes.

'El abrazo de la serpiente' was mostly filmed in regions of Mitu, capital city of the Colombian department of Vaupes, where 27 native ethnic groups live.

The festival, running from September 1st to 22nd, includes films from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Uruguay.