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Editor's Note:
This month LAVA is pleased to feature the work of two of South America's most respected documentarians: Marta Rodriguez and Gustavo Guayasamin. Marta Rodriguez has devoted her career to exposing human rights violations in her native Colombia, from her early, ground-breaking documentary on families of brickmakers to her newest documentary on Colombia's displaced. The work of Ecuadorian filmmaker Gustavo Guayasamin explores the cultural diversity of Ecuador, including indigenous and black communities.
To order any of these tapes, contact us by email at info@lavavideo.org, by phone 212-243-4804, or by fax 212-243-2007. Our website at www.latinamericanvideo.org unites the collections of all US distributors that handle Latin American titles, making it easy to locate the titles you are looking for. We are now able to accept payment by credit card.
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The Work of Marta Rodriguez
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Never Again Get Details and Purchasing Info
Marta Rodriguez and Fernando Restrepo
Documentary 56 minutes 2001
With English subtitles
In the violent and complex conflict that has racked Colombia, it is always the most vulnerable who are the most affected. Co-directed by legendary Colombian filmmaker Marta Rodríguez (Brickmayers [1971], Love, Women and Flowers [1989]), NUNCA MAS presents the stories of Afrocolombian peasants displaced from their land in the armed conflict between the Colombian army, Marxist guerillas, and the right-wing paramilitary in the isolated province of the Chocó. Their harrowing ordeal began with gruesome massacres by paramilitary death squads and caused their flight through arduous conditions to the city of Turbo and over the border to Panama, where they were placed in refugee camps under inhuman conditions. This film captures their clamor for justice and repatriation to their lands, and their search for emotional closure through the processes of memory and testimony. The film weaves through the stories of the people of the Chocó themselves, who vividly recount through music, dance, art, and their own gripping narration the uprooting from humble lives in the rainforest to the degradation of the refugee camps. But their trauma did not leave them passive victims – an important part of their story is the political and cultural mobilization with which they are petitioning the Colombian government and the international community to ensure that their ordeal is never repeated. NEVER AGAIN aims to make certain that their story, and the struggle, are heard.
Purchase Price: $ 250.00
Poppy: The Damned Flower Get Details and Purchasing Info
Marta Rodriguez and Lucas Silva
Documentary 30 minutes 1998
With English subtitles
This documentary illustrates the stark choices many rural Colombian communities face - either grow poppy, as they are encouraged to do by multiple outside forces, or face starvation. The valuable testimony given here by the members of an indigenous community shows that they see the problem of illegal crops as a social one, calling for land reform, access to education, and general alleviation of poverty. Yet the Colombian government's response to the problem has been to use toxic herbicides that not only destroy opium fields, but also ruin subsistence crops and affect the rural population's health.
Purchase Price: $ 250.00
Love, Women and Flowers Get Details and Purchasing Info
Marta Rodriguez and Jorge Silva
Documentary 58 minutes 1988
With English subtitles
Behind the beauty of carnations sold in the U.S. horror story of hazardous working conditions for thousands of women who labor in the flower industry. The use of pesticides and fungicides, some banned in the developed countries that export them, has drastic health and environmental consequences. This beautiful and powerful documentary is the final collaborative effort of Marta Rodriguez and her husband Jorge Silva. The filmmakers evoke the testimonies of the women workers and document their efforts to organize with urgency and intimacy.
Purchase Price: $ 295.00
Brickmakers, The Get Details and Purchasing Info
Marta Rodriguez and Jorge Silva
Documentary 42 minutes 1972
With English subtitles
This meticulously shot and edited film, 6 years in the making, documents the squalid life of a Colombian family in the grips of poverty and exploitation. The Castañedas - father, mother, and all of their 12 children over the age of 3 - spend their days digging in the mud and hauling bricks to a toxin-belching kiln. The depth of knowledge and the intimacy of the footage reflect the years the filmmakers shared with the Castañedas, and its origins in the filmmakers’ anthropological studies allows it to shed light on such diverse issues as the economic structure of the family’s exploitation, the process of making the bricks, and the family’s political and religious beliefs.But the film departs from the flat documentary style as its weaves together voices that exemplify the forces of technological change, domestic and political violence, and sheer spiritual and material need that envelop the Castañeda family. The poignancy and urgency of the gorgeously shot black-and-white images are a timeless exploration of the tragedy of economic exploitation and the fragility of the human spirit.
Purchase Price: $ 250.00
Children of Thunder Get Details and Purchasing Info
Marta Rodriguez de Silva
Docudrama 52 minutes 1998
With English subtitles
The opening of the Colombian market to
international competition initiated a crisis when
the fall in coffee prices-traditionally one of
the greatest sources of revenue for many
indigenous groups -opened the doors to the
cultivation of poppy. This documentary looks at
the growth of illicit crop cultivation in the
state of Cauca, home to the majority of
Colombia's indigenous groups.
Purchase Price: $ 250.00
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The Work of Gustavo Guayasamin
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Heaven for my Cunshi Get Details and Purchasing Info
Gustavo Guayasamin
fiction 13 minutes 1975
With English subtitles
Andrés Chiliquinga, a poor Huasipunguero Indian, wants to bury Cunshi, his wife, in the graveyard closest to the church to ensure that she will go to heaven. But first, Andrés has to steal a cow to pay for the burial. This short silent film is based on the final chapters of the novel Huasipungo, by Jorge Icaza.
Purchase Price: $ 79.95
Icemen of Chimborazo Get Details and Purchasing Info
Gustavo Guayasamin
Documentary 21 minutes 1980
With English subtitles
In Ecuador, the Indian peasants of Chimborazo weekly climb the mountains above their village to cut ice from glacial snowcaps for sale to fresh food vendors at the market in Guaranda - unless they have already bought it from the local factory.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Tales of Ecuadorian Culture Get Details and Purchasing Info
Gustavo Guayasamin
Documentary 20 minutes 1977
With English subtitles
This documentary shows various cultural aspects of Ecuador and its multicultural population. It includes urban and rural stories, and performances by indigenous and black communities.
Purchase Price: $ 79.95
Puntiachil Get Details and Purchasing Info
Gustavo Guayasamin
Documentary 50 minutes 1994
With English subtitles
This documentary explains the ancestral Solar Calendar.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
Tiag Get Details and Purchasing Info
Igor Guayasamin and Gustavo Guayasamin
Documentary 52 minutes 1987
With English subtitles
Despite 500 years of Catholic evangelization, indigenous communities of the Andes remain firm in their beliefs. This film discusses the daily lives and religious beliefs of the Andean indigenous groups.
Purchase Price: $ 99.95
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