Two texts
This damn country: one of a very nice Chilean journalist I met during the film festival Another
of Valparaiso, in January, the other a text
newspaper The other film , the
Encounters of the Other Cinema as part of its eighth edition. The analysis is
Alejo Casares and documentary concerns two Ecuadorians present at this festival:
This damn country and Alpachaca of Jorge Luis Narvaez
.
CHILDREN FEEL AND BROTHERS IN DIVERSITY
By Juan Francisco Castell
"All we ever wanted to not be Ecuadorians", this phrase ends off Quito documentary filmmaker Juan Martín Cueva.
Ecuador was the guest at the third version Film Festival on Human Rights, held in mid-January in Valparaiso, and "This Damn Country" the director said, the highlight of the meeting.
As a good festival in the making, it retains many of that spontaneity which is then miss the events with the highest level of production. It's simple, discreet friendship with rough and hard. Aperrado as we say colloquially. And the result is commendable. There are people from several Latin American countries and the supply of "movies" as called by the guild to the films, is quite comprehensive and of good standard.
course, I am in Valparaiso in something like an "official business" in the task of finding some honorable that you want to refer to the bill creating the Ministry of Environment. An order always complicated, but in January definitely unrealistic.
Resigned to failure of management, in a cafe in the port comes into my hands a small booklet that promotes III Film Festival on Human Rights. Leo in his comprehensive proposal also includes environmental documentaries online. I think I will not be attending empty handed and some audiovisual theme I do not feel bad, especially because they rarely sail on those routes.
The truth is that the environment can not find anything. However, the titles in theaters, "This Damn Country "is captivating, I presume that is the story of a damned poet step by half the world. Or a terrifying story that occurred in the Amazon rainforest. And much speculated about, because I'm in the former School of Theatre, University of Valparaiso. A luxury place. The theaters cinemas are those that generate nostalgia. I reflect on the sad, and series, cultural infrastructure of today versus those originals and fine old spaces.
In the lobby of the University, are members of the festival as a whole. The organizer, Nelson, a very nice guy, surrounded by his colleagues, all with no air left renewed, say left more well. There is gender parity and it was not overlooked the diverse beauty of several actresses and filmmakers, representing the best of their countries of origin.
is out there wondering if a certain Juan Martin Cave, I say that as I read was the director of the Festival's guest country, Ecuador, and noted that I am a journalist. Quito documentarian, looks French or English, any other forum participants had more pint of Ecuadorian forgiven prejudice, that tall guy with the face of intellectual and forties.
I commented that I come to see the documentary because I was struck by the title, I say in passing that I am neophyte made in audiovisual materials, I am dedicated to environmental issues, he replies that environmentalism is the least I can know. There is a discussion, it is a very pleasant chat, the skinny is pretty simple and interesting dialogue, though it is clear that he and his film are the bells and whistles of the meeting. We insist
reference to name and tell him my disquisitions on French poets damned, cursed generation Ecuadorian writers that also something I read, but it says nothing to do, entitled This damn country because Names are important and should be jurors. I think intelligent response, however, look for a chair that allows me to flee if its more than two hours of documentary too. I'd rather disappear before falling asleep in the middle of the projection.
The public adds more room than expected, are all participants in the festival and many people, and several spontaneous like me. Fortunately, I have no escape, no one moves even in their seats, this damn country, from beginning to end has a rhythm that catches it, the 127 minutes seem to fly in the diversity of stories that are intertwined. Remnants of yesterday, searching for identity, acceptance and denial, mixtures of love and distrust. Hybridizations that are not recorded in the books. Find very aesthetic imagery and luminous testimony and direct.
The script seems simple, but the plot is not. Is a sequence of characters, each representing one of the many oddities that are, or should be, overall, the Ecuadorian identity. Underlying the proposal that Ecuador is a multicultural country and the idea that all expressions must be recognized. I would say this is the paradigm, or rather the bet that exposes the film.
The characters seem drawn from castings, but are not, their testimony seems eminent work of scriptwriters, it is not so. The trappings as seductive as the stories are authentic. There are stories of black people to Arabs, interspersed individual members of indigenous groups, and crossbreeding of emergency as a young Indian with a Japanese woman. I conclude there are no characters here but people who explain their history and identity in first person, this role gives the director himself, while subtly emerges a remarkable job of research.
Contrasts are on the edge. It's interesting how they can share and rhyme in the same proposal, a Palestinian immigrant playing a piano, siútico to the utmost, with a humble and wise black-Resembling a Hollywood super-production with unusual force summing their origins.
This damn country within two hours flying realize, through its people, a country colorful, diverse, with many ethnicities and cultures, which are distributed in a rather small territory and have to live together and build a common history.
off phrase "all we ever wanted to not be Ecuadorians" has nothing to do with a rejection, but rather a complicated question, "What does being Ecuadorian? To feel sons and brothers from and diversity?
reflection not easy, on which Juan Martín Cueva gave some lights in a brief, acclaimed conference. I thought to intervene to congratulate him and tell him that his documentary was a wonderful reflection on the human environment, but I remembered that I know nothing about movies.
Two ways to address the issue of identity
For Alejo S. Casares
The complexity of the human being has always overcome its own limits, to question itself. And its origins, to discover the truth and use their results as the beginning of a new way forward. This year, the EDOC account in its programming with two documentaries that delve into the nature of our country, they try to answer the eternal "Who we are "without fear or compromise: This damn country and Alpachaca Juan Martín Cueva, Land Bridge Jorge Luis Narvaez. Both arrive preceded his well-deserved reputation, as the former was made to represent Ecuador in the series The American, Brazilian television, while the second was awarded the San Miguel Augusto, 2007 in the Documentary Feature category.
How complicated is to define the Ecuadorean? It may seem difficult, given the diversity typical of a country where mixing and migration for a long time, not been given its rightful place large portions of the population. Cave knows and part precisely from there. With a judicious selection of characters to include and Jorgenrique Tibán Adoum Lourdes, This damn country is unveiling the imagination of a people made up of many people, a collage of stories covered in political, artistic, romantic or simply the need for survival , leading inexorably to the viewer to recognize and feel a stranger at a time.
The camera enters a home, check out the past and questions about our future as smiles start with the same ease with which people planting questions we reflected on the screen. This damn country makes it clear that being Ecuador is not the same in each region, because an Ecuadorean says 'we' does not refer to the same as the rest of their compatriots. Failed "then the attempt to define a country and a sense of belonging of its people? No, definitely and absolutely not. The differences of any kind that shows the film are the perfect reflection of true nature of our people.
Alpachaca ... is a documentary that deals with one group of people, so it addresses the question of identity from another point of view. The black of the Chota is presented from a historical perspective, with dates and facts, indisputable facts of a past which were slaves when slavery was abolished, and when I really started to be free. All this paves the way to the present, when the strength of the race is expressed in the history of political dissatisfaction of Aida Espinosa, while on the other side is heard a claim to the rest of Ecuador for remembering the Valle del Chota only when one of their children score a goal in the selection.
Alpachaca Bridge seems to be the union of the stories of the various worlds through which passes the community of Chota, a natural opposition between persons engaged in work, music and sport, and those forced to resort to crime to survive. The socket is opened and the field of vision extends to the whole province. It is the ideal time to present more of that rich land, its customs, its present, its needs, the rest of their people and their ways of coexistence with those who inhabit the Valle del Chota.
After face the problem of identity, whether of our whole country or a forgotten segment, often leading from the front pages in the sports pages of newspapers, we are ready to give our own answers to the questions that served as the engine to the directors for the realization of his films. Each will devise their own feelings of belonging to the homeland.
long time since I updated this blog, and is that really the work and other chores I have not had time to update it. 
