In an opulent study decorated with big game trophies, a zebra head hangs prominently. Mauricio attempts to explain the poor creature’s untimely death to his little sister, ‘Some animals are so fierce, so attached to their way of being that they would rather die than be domesticated…but there are others, like horses or ponies, that you give them a sugar cube… and they’ll sell you their soul.’ Behind them Manuela, a beautiful and privileged 22-year-old girl, is distressed by this observation. Circumstances force her to decide; is she a pony or a zebra? Las Malas Lenguas is a Colombian film that embodies the cultural zeitgeist of the country itself; it offers unprecedented access into the world of Colombia’s elite, and Manuela’s journey offers a glimpse of the maddening atmosphere created when modernity and wealth coexist with third world problems and sensibilities.