The 4th Native Spirit Festival arrives in London
02 October, 2010The Native Spirit Festival, home to indigenous film and a huge promoter of the culture and life of native peoples, are returning to London for the fourth time. The festival will be running from October 12th-22nd and will feature a variety of films on the indigenous people of Brazil, Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Peru and Venezuela, hence is a must for anyone interested in the native people of these countries. There will also be a musical excursion from Emily Burridge and readings from the Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry. Here are all the events relating to South America:
WEDNESDAY 13TH OCTOBER
Venue: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL HRAC
6.15pm LIFE FOR SALE
‘Life For Sale’ examines the biggest water market in the world, set up in Chile. Where the country’s water resources “belong” to private individuals and one company can own an entire river. Even in the Atacama Desert the mining companies draw immense quantities of water to wash metals, thus condemning thousands of natives and farmers’ villages to thirst and poverty.
Dir Yorgos Avgeropoulos / 61mins / Chile/ Greece
7.40pm KON KON
followed by Q&A with the director
In this documentary poem, Cecilia Vicuña returns to Con Con, the birthplace of her art in Chile, where the sea is dying and an ancient tradition is being destroyed
Dir Cecilia Vicuña / 54mins / Chile
THURSDAY 14TH OCTOBER
Venue: SOAS
8.10pm THE BEGINNING WAS IN WARISATA
September 20th 2003. Before the dawn broke, soldiers attacked the Aymara community of Warisata. The deaths in Warisata sparked the Bolivian Gas War, an indigenous insurrection that brought down the president and began a new era of politics in Bolivia.
An 84-year-old man –don Basilio- visits present-day Warisata to meet with the eldest members.
Dir David Busto Izquierdo / 75mins / Aymara People / Bolivia
FRIDAY 15TH OCTOBER
Venue: SOAS
6 pm CORUMBIARA, They shoot Indians, don’t they?
A film crew’s 20-year quest to tell the world the story of a modern day genocide in the heart of the Amazon. Corumbiara shows the startling footage of that search and the Indians – three previously uncontacted indigenous groups – side of the story.
Dir Vincent Carelli / 117mins / Akuntsu & Kanoe / Amazonia, Brasil
8.15 pm Into the Amazon
Over the last fourteen years British cellist Emily Burridge has worked with a Xavante indian community in the Mato Grosso Brazil. Singing is central to the Xavante culture and Emily was invited to record their songs. With these recordings Emily takes the audience on a brief journey into an Indian village.
The performance will include some of her photos of the Xavante and imagery from the Amazon by the photographer Sue Cunningham.
FRIDAY 15TH OCTOBER
Venue: SOAS
6.30 pm LENIN IN MARACAIBO
Lenin in Maracaibo blends documentary and fiction to tell a love story encapsulating the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. Yaritza a young Wayuu indigenous woman is determined to empower her community. Carlos, a young middle class man disillusioned by his aristocratic upbringing, is in search of equality and change. Together they come to learn what it means to be a revolutionary. CERT 18
Dir Rodrigo Vazquez / 96mins / Wayuu People / Venezuela/UK
8.20 pm KUNA CONVERSATION WITH MOTHER EARTH
Kuna elders from the Ustupu community share their wisdom about nature, spirituality and the importance to live in harmony with all of life.
Dir Ustupu community / 14mins / Kuna People / Panama
THE ORIGINS OF THE TIKUNA PEOPLE
In this fiction feature, Colombian filmmaker Gustavo de la Hoz introduces us to the mythology of the Tikuna people from the Colombian Amazonia. The first of a series of indigenous mythology features where the indigenous are the protagonist.
Dir Gustavo de la Hoz / 60mins / Tikuna People / Amazonia-Colombia
WEDNESDAY 20TH OCTOBER
Venue: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL HRAC
6.30 pm CHILDREN OF THE AMAZON
Children of the Amazon follows Brazilian filmmaker Denise Zmekhol as she travels a modern highway deep into the Amazon in search of the Indigenous Surui and Negarote children she photographed fifteen years ago. Her journey tells the story of what happened to life in the largest forest on Earth when a road was built straight through its heart.
Dir Denise Zmekhol / 72mins / Negarote and Surui People / Brasil
WEDNESDAY 20TH OCTOBER
Venue: BIRBECK UNIVERSITY
7.30 pm The Oxford Book of Latin American Poetry
edited by Cecilia Vicuña and Ernesto Livon-Grosman.
Cecilia Vicuña, a poet, artist, and filmmaker presents her milestone anthology, a multilingual book covering more than 500 years’ production of Latin American poetry. Compiling work by 140 poets, the book includes texts by indigenous, Colonial, modernist and feminist poets, as well as 1960s’ liberation pieces, and experimental and oral poetries. It presents a new alignment of a complex tradition that incorporates visual poetry and poetry in space.
The event will be chaired by Professor William Rowe co-director of the Contemporary poetics Research Centre at Birkbeck University and one of the translators of the Anthology.
THURSDAY 21ST OCTOBER
Venue: AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL HRAC
7.50pm LEUFU
In the Cordillera de los Andes, amidst a chain of volcanic peaks, Mapuche communities are standing up to defend their river – a source of life and spirituality – from yet another crime against nature.
Dir Maya Bazzini / 24mins / Mapuche People / Chile/UK
8.30 pm LA LAGUNA NEGRA
Followed by Q&A with the director
This film explores the core values of a subsistence farming community in Huancabamba (Peru), the way the fabric of this society has been threatened by large scale mining and the destructive outcome of imposing a capital intensive model of development on a society based on traditional values.
Dir Michael Watts / 23mins / Peru/UK
FRIDAY 22nd OCTOBER
Venue: SOAS
6.30pm THE YEAR ZERO
Followed by Q&A with the director
A film about Maya prophesies, With Wandering Wolf and Don Julian
At a vast gathering deep in Colombia’s Amazon forest, four hundred representatives ritually prepare for 2012, which marks the end of the Maya calendar.
In addition to Wandering Wolf, Don Julian – Indian medicine man and rainmaker – is attending. By way of both their lives, the background of ancient Indian predictions about the near future of mankind is disclosed
Dir Wiek Lenssen / 83mins / Maya / Guatemala-Netherlands
Venues details and Ticket prices:
Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre
17-25 New Inn Yard, London, EC2A 3EA
Day Tickets: £10/ £8 concessions
(Day ticket includes entry to all films/performances/talks on the day)
SOAS – School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H
Tel 020 7898 4995
Free, Donations
Birbeck College
Malet Street
London WC1E 7HX
Tel 020 7631 6000
Free, Donations
Festival Pass: £35
For more information and latest updates of the Festival’s program please visit
www.nativespiritfoundation.org
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