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Editor's Note:
Welcome to the first issue of LAVA's electronic "Featured Titles" newsletter. This month we have chosen to highlight video tapes made by Indigenous peoples as an example of how video is being used by native communities throughout Latin America as a tool for cultural preservation and political action. This project has received support from the MacArthur Foundation, National Video Resources, The Rockefeller Foundation, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
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BRAZIL - The Center for Indigenous Work
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Girl's Celebration, The Get Details and Purchasing Info
Vincent Carelli
Documentary 18 minutes 1987
With English subtitles
A history of the Nambiquara people and their use of video as a tool in cultural preservation. The Nambiquara tape their dance patterns and compare them to performances of the same dance by other clans. When they re-play the tape, the Nambiquara realize that they appear very occidental and feel that they are losing their own identity. They decide to re-tape the same dance, wearing traditional clothing. As a way of symbolically recovering their identity, the men ceremonially pierce their noses and lips using wooden sticks without anesthesia.
Purchase Price: $ 79.95
We Gather as a Family Get Details and Purchasing Info
Vincent Carelli
Documentary 32 minutes 1993
With English subtitles
This tape documents the cultural exchange between two Brazilian tribal groups, the Parakateje and the Kraho.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Pemp Get Details and Purchasing Info
Vincent Carelli
Documentary 27 minutes 1988
With English subtitles
This tape traces the resistance and strategy of the Parakateje (Gaviao) in their twenty-five- year struggle to maintain their autonomy in the face of huge development projects in the south of Para. Beginning with the initial recovery of their lands in 1957, through dealings with FUNAI in the 70s and the appropriation of brazilnut monopolies, the tape documents the Parakateje's negotiations with government over the Tucurui hydroelectric power station and the invasion of their territory by landless migrant farmworkers. In this context, Pemp shows the Parakateje's most precious project -- the preservation of their ceremonies and songs and documents how Kokrenum, chief and keeper of the group's traditions, uses video to transmit them to future generations.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Meeting Ancestors: The Zo'e Get Details and Purchasing Info
Vincent Carelli and Dominique Gallois
Documentary 22 minutes 1993
With English subtitles
Now considered a classic, this documentary shows the power of video as a tool of communication when appropriated by indigenous communities. Chief Waiwai, accompanied by a group of his fellow Waiapi Indians, takes a trip to meet the Zo'e, an isolated indigenous group whom the Waiwai previously knew only through video. The Zo'e, increasingly in touch with the outside world, are now experiencing the phenomena of contact that the Waiapi went through twenty years ago. By sharing their customs with their visitors, the Zo'e allow the Waiapi to reconnect with the wisdom of their ancestors. The Waiapi, in turn, use video footage to warn the Zo'e about the dangers of the white world.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Video Cannibalism Get Details and Purchasing Info
Vincent Carelli
Documentary 16 minutes 1994
With English subtitles
In a cultural exchange CTI staff introduce the Euanuene tribe to video. The goal of the project is to inform them about the outside world, as well as to capture on tape what they want to share with others about their culture. Very comfortable with themselves and their bodies, the men do not hesitate to be on camera, in fact thay are eager to playfully jump around and show off their manhood. Sexuality is present in their everyday lives, and is very much a part of their myths and rituals. The women however, are more reserved about appearing in the tape and are afraid that once everyone sees the tapes, they will be made fun of and humiliated. The Euanuene are also shown movies that have been made about other Indian tribes, such as Dances With Wolves. Although fascinated and touched by the movie, they did not understand that the actors had not actually been killed. Once they understood it was a reenactment of an historical event, they decided that they too would reenact a scene from their history: the attack of "Cinta-Larga."
Purchase Price: $ 79.95
Free For All in Sarare Get Details and Purchasing Info
Vincent Carelli
Documentary 27 minutes 1992
With English subtitles
More than 6,000 gold and mineral prospectors have invaded the reserve of the Nambiquara of Saráre, and the loggers in the region raid their mahogany-rich forests, stealing wood which is becoming extinct in Amazonia. Only pressure on the World Bank, with whom the Government of Mato Grosso is negotiating a loan, could bring prospecting to a close...but the pillage of the forest continues.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Signs Don't Speak Get Details and Purchasing Info
Dominique Gallois/Vincent Carelli
Documentary 27 minutes 1997
With English subtitles
The Waiapi Indians of northern Brazil organize and successfully expel gold prospectors from their land; they demarcate their own territory to protect it from future devastation.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Chichen-Itza Get Details
Gonzalo Infante Castaneda
docudrama 30 minutes 1991
With English subtitles
Part of the series, "Ciudades del México antiguo" (Cities of Ancient Mexico) this video represents how the ancient city of Chichén Itzá, Yucatán developed and changed. The program opens with a short historical introduction combining drawings and actual views of the city. The major portion of the video consists of a re-creation of daily life and sacred rituals during the time of the Maya and the Itzá, the conquering peoples who changed the name of the city to Chichén Itzá. The producers speculate on an alliance between the Maya and the Itzá, comparing these two groups to the divine brothers in the sacred myths.
Dear Diary Get Details
Sarah Minter
animation 12 minutes 1992
With English subtitles
In this creative animated piece, a young girl goes on a school field trip to the ruins of Teotihuacán (just outside Mexico City). She meets a pre-Columbian boy named Agua, who takes her for a visit into the past to see how the temple's wall decorations were made and to catch glimpses of what life was like in these times. When the girl awakens from her dream, and rejoins her classmates, Agua's request echoes in her mind: "No nos olvides" (Don't forget us).
Skirt Full of Butterflies, A Get Details and Purchasing Info
Ellen Osborne and Maureen Gosling
Documentary 15 minutes 1993
With English subtitles
Matriarchy. That is what explorers and other outsiders have simplistically labeled the Zapotecs of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in southern Oaxaca, Mexico. The Isthmus is a place where women run the economy, where cultural identity is of utmost importance, where being fat is regarded as an ideal of beauty and where female ancestors displayed ingenuity and spunk in times of war and political resistance. Anthropologists call it a partnership society where one is first a human being, an individual and only second and incidentally a man or a woman. (It is a love poem to the Isthmus women.) We hear from five women whose stories are interlaced with scenes of work and the resplendent festivities, music, poetry and paintings of the region. They show how valuable economic independence, community, friendship, cultural pride and respect for "women's work" are in giving a woman self-esteem and a sense of purpose in life. They are also a testament to what that sense of dignity contributes to the well-being of society. "Knocks traditional machismo on its ear!" -Guillermos Medina, El Mensajero, San Francisco. "Colorful and sensual ... the women's voices are heard strong and clear." -Film Arts Foundation. Received Honorable Mention for Best Film at CineFestival, San Antonio, Texas.
Purchase Price: $ 79.95
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MEXICO - The War in Chiapas
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Sixth Sun: Mayan Uprising in Chiapas Get Details and Purchasing Info
Saul Landau
Documentary 56 minutes 1996
With English subtitles
Chronicles the January 1994 uprising led by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation. Visually interweaving the Mayan past and the Mexican Revolution with contemporary reality, this documentary portrays an epic confrontationpitting impoverished Indian peasants against large landowners and government officials in Mexico's poorest state. The video features in-depth interviews with Subcomandante Marcos, the ski-masked 'poet-warrior' amidts the mountains and junglesfrom which the rebellion sprang, as well as other leaders and soldiers from the Zapatista movement. Other protagonists include Bishop Ruiz, Mexico's outspoken practitioner of liberation theology and defender of indigenous rights; ranchers forced from their land,; activists layminsters,; government officials and army officers; the notorious guardias blancas, the landowners' private armies.
Purchase Price: $ 350.00
We Are All Marcos Get Details
Documentary 47 minutes 1995
With English subtitles
An excellent introduction to the EZLN uprising, focusing on the period from President Ernesto Zedillo's inauguration on December 1, 1994, though the collapse of the Mexican economy later in December. Also featured are the fast of Bishop Ruiz and the Mexican army invasion of Chiapas on Febuary 9, 1995. The documentary provides an incisive analysis of Mexico's economic crisis and the role of the U.S. government.
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