Social & External
After 52 years of armed conflict the FARC guerrillas are about to hand over their arms in exchange for political participation and social inclusion of the poor. Ernesto is one of them. The much celebrated Colombian peace agreement throws Ernesto and the polarised society around him into chaos in which everyone is afraid of the future and their own survival.
The village of Tamaquito lies deep in the forests of Colombia. Here, nature provides the people with everything they need. But the Wayúu community's way of life is being destroyed by the vast and rapidly growing El Cerrejón coal mine. Determined to save his community from forced resettlement, the leader Jairo Fuentes negotiates with the mine's operators, which soon becomes a fight to survive.
Women workers stand up to the toxic flower industry in Colombia.
Tomorrow’s Power is a feature length documentary that showcases three communities around the world and their responses to economic and environmental emergencies they are facing. In the war-torn, oil-rich Arauca province in Colombia, communities have been building a peace process from the bottom up. In Germany activists are pushing the country to fully divest from fossil-fuel extraction and complete its transition to renewable energy. In Gaza health practitioners are harnessing solar power to battle daily life-threatening energy blackouts in hospitals.
Ed Asner narrates this documentary about U.S. involvement in Colombia's drug trafficking and civil unrest. The film examines the impact of chemical spraying and military funding and reveals alternate U.S. interests. Features interviews with Noam Chomsky, the late Senator Paul Wellstone, Colombian Presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, Congressmen John Conyers and Jim McGovern, U.S. State Department officials, guerilla leaders and others.
A Matter of Land recounts the first year of application of Colombian's Land Restitution Act from the perspective of a community who decide to engage with the process. The film explores the tensions that arise when such communities come face to face with the complex institutions responsible for enforcing the law. The result of these tensions is a narrative worthy of Kafka, in which a doorway to justice is opened for the sole purpose of demonstrating that no one can pass through it.
Ciro Galindo was born on August 29th, 1952 in Colombia. Wherever he's gone, war has found him. After twenty years of friendship, I understood Ciro 's life sums up Colombia's history. As so many Colombians he is a survivor, who has run away from war for more than sixty years, and now dreams of living in peace. "Ciro and Me" is a journey to memory, seeking to give sorrow words; a journey, similar to that of Colombia in times of peace, in search to recover its dignity.
The life of Pedro Manrique Figueroa, a pioneer of collage in Colombia, is both incomplete and contradictory. Taking his life and work as a pretext, this mockumentary takes the viewer on a journey through history from the year 1934 up until 1981, when the artist mysteriously disappeared from view.
In the depths of the Colombian jungle, the skeleton of an immense abandoned cement bridge is tucked away. It has turned into a delusional tourist attraction.
Sumercé follows veteran activist Don Eduardo, rising political leader César Pachón and agricultural educator Rosita as they fight their government’s decision to allow companies to carve up the campesinos birthright in rural Colombia and the country's access to fresh water.
'The Accordion's Journey' narrates the story of three Colombian musicians. Year after year they participate in the world's largest competitive accordion festival, held in Valledupar, Colombia. But they never win. One day a letter arrives, inviting them to play alongside the legendary Hohner Accordion Orchestra in Trossingen, Germany, the birthplace of the 'Corona', Colombia's most popular accordion. It's the first time abroad for our three heroes and they discover a very different culture, a first encounter with snow and ice and make new friends. But will their adventure help them in winning the accordion festival back in Valledupar?
If you take a pinch of Khoi-San lament, a dash of Malay spice, a bold measure of European orchestral, a splash of Xhosa spiritual, a clash of marching bands, a riff of rock, the pizzazz of the Klopse, some driving primal beat, and a lot of humour and musical virtuosity, what do you get? Goema Goema Goema! Weaving together the ancient, the traditional, and the classical into the contemporary universal sound of Cape Town, Mac MacKenzie, musical mastermind and founder of The Genuines and The Goema Captains of Cape Town, puts together the final touches to the culmination of his life’s work: Goema in Five Movements. Musicians and musical commentators Hilton Schilder, Neo Muyanga, Iain Harris and Graham Arendse, and new kids on the block, Kyle Shepherd and Shane Cooper, add a contemporary context to Goema, while the orchestra rehearses for its premiere performance at the SABC studios.
In autumn 2016, demonstrations sprang up all over Europe against the CETA free-trade agreement between the European Union and Canada. The reason? An obscure clause which allows multinationals to sue nation states if they feel their profits may be damaged by government decisions. An investigation into the hidden world of international arbitration.
An intimate portrait of the pioneering artistic collective Grupo de Cali, whose work is now considered a fundamental part of Colombia’s film history.
Jaguar voice of a territory is a Colombian production that took a decade to complete. It talks about love, affection, respect, humility, temperance and courage. It talks about balance with oneself and the other. It is the voice of a territory and a tradition where the jaguar dwells and seeks to be heard. It is a tour through the mountains, jungles and plains where the jaguar has directly engaged with humans, creating a millenary journey of chants, myths and cultural traditions which narrate the history of the man-jaguar relationship, and speak to the importance of preserving this species which finds itself severely threatened.
As a child, Jairo William Gutiérrez traded a few onions for a ticket to the circus and from then on he only wanted to be an actor and playwright. Today Jairo is 50 years old and farms the land, milks his cow and writes theater. His passion for the stage is so great that he set up a theater company, which is made up of his wife, two daughters and a few neighbors.
The stories told in this documentary span the twenty-five years of existence of the now-defunct La Gorgona prison, located on the island of the same name. Thus, confinement, violence, and isolation gave rise to many escape attempts, but few were successful. Through interviews with individuals who experienced these events firsthand, the use of animated reenactments, and the emphasis on the power of nature, this work visually reproduces journalist Silvia Luz Gutiérrez's investigation into the mysteries surrounding various characters and their different fates.
From the land of narco-violence to the land of displaced persons. The documentary Guerras Ajenas ('Wars of Others') explores the consequences of the war on drugs in Colombia, and one of its main tools: aerial spraying.
It is with an old bus an about thirty snakes that Franz Florez struggles for the preservation of nature in Colombia, one of the most environmentally diverse country in the world. His snakes are his pass to enter the deep jungle, where guerrillas fight the regular army and where narco-traffickers meet coca growers. Facing the threat of the industrial exploitation of these preserved areas, he tries to gather support among the population, including the armed actors.
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