2012 Native Cinema Showcase in Santa Fe

Hello my southwestern friends and folks who will be in Santa Fe through this Sunday, August 19. Please check out the Native Cinema Showcase at the New Mexico History Museum (113 Lincoln Avenue, Santa Fe, NM) ! I checked out a few films for a chapter I recently submitted on films about Native Americans in sports (Skateboard Nation and Run to the East), but many films in the line up are new to me so please let me know what you thought of them. I’m particularly interested in the sneak preview of The Medicine Game. (I still need to post my impressions of Crooked Arrows, which I watched on opening weekend.) Until next time, for all the runners out there, here is the trailer for Run to the East

 

Tejiendo Sabiduria / We Women Warriors

 

Last Friday, I saw the premiere of We Women Warriors / Tejiendo Sabiduria at the IFC Center in the Village (NYC). This documentary, by Nicole Karsin, who was on hand for Q&A after the screening, followed three Colombian indigenous activists: Doris (Awá(, Ludis (Kankuamo), and Flor Ilva (Nasa). Their communities are caught between the military, FARC, and paramilitary forces and the attendant violence. Some of them have lost their husbands and are left as single parents, a situation they share with many women in their communities. While the killing of men has left many widows and fatherless children, women as well as children are also direct targets of violence. The film contains graphic content and shows how many people are so easily wrongly accused or framed. As female leaders, these three women are charged with making decisions on sensitive issues that affect their communities. They also work to find more sustainable working conditions. This includes a discussion about the irreconcilable positions of the protagonists of the war on drugs and (indigenous, in this case) farmers who have little alternatives to growing coca.

I often marvel at the footage that documentary filmmakers are able to capture given the risky circumstances they are filming. During the Q&A, I asked Karsin how she navigated the line between wanting to get these women’s (and people’s) stories to a greater audience, but also possibly putting them in danger as a result. Also, does having a film crew on hand help to temper a potentially violent situation? Karsin responded by noting that the Nasa themselves have better video equipment than she does and were on hand filming one of the events which I referred to (that could have taken a violent turn). Although I think that having a foreign filmmaker on hand at that particular event may have made a difference (although she did not, and with her experience, she would know better), the point is well taken that indigenous people are themselves protagonists in the documentation of these events. So, she was not putting them at greater risk than the community itself was taking in also filming. The time invested in documentaries also never ceases to impress me. In response to another moviegoer, Karsin noted that the film took 6 years to make, with varying degrees of time to gain the trust of the three women highlighted in the film, which has not yet been screened in Colombia.

This documentary would be useful for any class dealing with indigenous women in Latin America; the war on drugs and coca production; and the ongoing armed conflict in Colombia.

In signing off, I’d like to thank my cousin Yvonne who attended the film screening with me. I don’t think I gave her enough of an explanation about this film, so I think it was a rude awakening after having our quiet vegan dinner at Cafe Blossom a few blocks away! But she said she was glad to have attended because it’s good to see what’s going on out there in the rest of the world. Which would make a good slogan for a t-shirt for documentaries. And I couldn’t agree more. Until  next time…

 

Free webcast of Jim Thorpe: World’s Greatest Athlete

In case you are still craving to watch the Olympics after the 12th, you may want to check out the live webcast of the documentary Jim Thorpe: World’s Greatest Athlete on the NMAI website on Friday, August 17, 2012 from 2–3pm (EDT). Check out the trailer here. This webcast, along with the discussion at the Washington D.C. NMAI site, is being presented in conjunction with the exhibition “Best in the World: Native Athletes in the Olympics,” on display through September 3, 2012. Shout out to Steve Beleu, fellow AILA member and reference librarian at the Oklahoma Depart of Libraries, for alerting me.