Indigenous movie bringing cross-border Amazon tribes collectively

By AFP

COLOMBIA: In Colombia’s Amazon jungle, indigenous individuals of various nations, ethnicities and languages have come collectively to discover a single voice in cinema to inform their very own tales, slightly than let outsiders do it.

One current week, locally of San Martin de Amacayacu in southern Colombia the native Tikuna tribe was joined for the primary time by the Matis individuals of Brazil for a crash course on movie.

“We didn’t know how to operate a camera so what they are doing is showing their experience, offering knowledge and perseverance,” Lizeth Reina, a 24-year-old Tikuna, mentioned.

The Matis, a tribe solely contacted in 1976, acquired two video cameras in 2015 and had been taught the best way to movie by the Brazilian Center for Indigenist Labor (CTI) and the National Indian Foundation.

Last month, they made a seven-day journey alongside fast-moving rivers and nearly impenetrable jungle paths to share their data with this Colombian group of some 700 individuals.

Tikuna indigenous filmmakers movie documentary brief movies with the help of Matis indigenous filmmakers in San Martin de Amacayacu, Colombia | AFP

As the boot camp obtained underway, a Matis with a particular facial tattoo, gave directions on the best way to focus a video digicam.

Around 10 Matis, generally known as “cat men” for the feline tattoos on their faces, had arrived from their house area within the Yavari valley — an space bigger than Austria and rife with drug trafficking and unlawful mineral extraction, logging and fishing.

British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenist Bruno Pereira had been murdered there in June.

The Yavari valley has the biggest variety of voluntarily remoted communities on the earth.

“It’s not easy getting here, we suffered a bit, but it’s very emotional,” filmmaker Pixi Kata Matis, 29, mentioned of the journey to San Martin.

Future reminiscences

Tikunas laughed as their company grimaced whereas sipping masato, a fermented yucca-based drink handed round in a cup constructed from the hard-rind calabash tree fruit.

Films had been projected contained in the maloca, a cultural, political, social and religious centre.

Hundreds of dazzled spectators watched as pictures of hunts with blowguns, bows and arrows flashed earlier than their eyes, in addition to the tattoo competition that marks the approaching of age of younger Matis.

“We have to show other people and the whites that we have our own identity,” mentioned Kata Matis.

Children play on the Amacayacu river in San Martin de Amacayacu, Colombia | AFP

The movies “can help keep memories for the future … so we don’t forget our traditions,” added Yina Moran, 17.

Placed in blended teams, the Tikunas proposed three brief movies on seeds, medicinal crops and masato, with the assistance of Matis, the CTI and the French affiliation ForestEver.

“The cameras blended into the landscape and families were more willing to share and communicate,” mentioned ForestEver coordinator Claire Davigo.

Exotic experiences

San Martin de Amacayacu, surrounded by a lush pure park, is made up of wood homes, some with colourful painted partitions, which can be house to a number of generations of the identical household.

Apprentices and their mentors spent the day conducting interviews and filming day by day life.

“The communication was wonderful because although we hardly speak Portuguese, we understood each other through our cultures,” mentioned Moran.

In the afternoon, locals made their means right down to the river to scrub garments or bathe.

At night time, mills had been fired as much as present 4 hours of electrical energy.

After that, the noise stopped to make means for jungle sounds.

Tikuna and Matis indigenous individuals edit their documentary brief movies with the help of the ForestEver French affiliation and the Brazilian Indigenous Work Center in San Martin de Amacayacu, Colombia | AFP

A decade after they had been first contacted, the Matis had been already the “stars of exotic reports” by US, Japanese, French and British journalists, in line with the CTI.

Foreigners had been captivated by their physique artwork and equipment: ears pierced with large ornaments, high quality rods passing via noses and lips, face tattoos and our bodies draped in jewellery.

But Kata Matis complained that “many people wanted to go to the village … filming without our authorization, without our understanding, and then they took the material” with out sharing it.

To stop a repeat, the Matis started writing their very own historical past in 2017.

Living ‘with two worlds’

Since arriving in San Martin, Dame Betxun Matis, 27, has not put down his digicam.

He took half in producing the “Matis tattoo festival” documentary that received the jury prize on the Kurumin indigenous cinema competition in 2021.

The movie demonstrates the custom of marking the face, a apply deserted by younger individuals who confronted discrimination in cities.

A Matis indigenous man and a Tikuna indigenous man pose for an image in San Martin de Amacayacu, Colombia | AFP

Kata Matis satisfied the group to renew the custom and filmed as some 90 younger individuals underwent the ritual.

On the Matis’ final night time in San Martin, a whole bunch of locals crammed the maloca to look at the Tikunas’ brief movies.

After a lot laughter, applause and shared masato, Kata Matis mirrored on the place of indigenous individuals in trendy nation-states.

“We don’t live between two worlds, we live with two worlds,” he mentioned.

COLOMBIA: In Colombia’s Amazon jungle, indigenous individuals of various nations, ethnicities and languages have come collectively to discover a single voice in cinema to inform their very own tales, slightly than let outsiders do it.

One current week, locally of San Martin de Amacayacu in southern Colombia the native Tikuna tribe was joined for the primary time by the Matis individuals of Brazil for a crash course on movie.

“We didn’t know how to operate a camera so what they are doing is showing their experience, offering knowledge and perseverance,” Lizeth Reina, a 24-year-old Tikuna, mentioned.

The Matis, a tribe solely contacted in 1976, acquired two video cameras in 2015 and had been taught the best way to movie by the Brazilian Center for Indigenist Labor (CTI) and the National Indian Foundation.

Last month, they made a seven-day journey alongside fast-moving rivers and nearly impenetrable jungle paths to share their data with this Colombian group of some 700 individuals.

Tikuna indigenous filmmakers movie documentary brief movies with the help of Matis indigenous filmmakers in San Martin de Amacayacu, Colombia | AFP

As the boot camp obtained underway, a Matis with a particular facial tattoo, gave directions on the best way to focus a video digicam.

Around 10 Matis, generally known as “cat men” for the feline tattoos on their faces, had arrived from their house area within the Yavari valley — an space bigger than Austria and rife with drug trafficking and unlawful mineral extraction, logging and fishing.

British journalist Dom Phillips and indigenist Bruno Pereira had been murdered there in June.

The Yavari valley has the biggest variety of voluntarily remoted communities on the earth.

“It’s not easy getting here, we suffered a bit, but it’s very emotional,” filmmaker Pixi Kata Matis, 29, mentioned of the journey to San Martin.

Future reminiscences

Tikunas laughed as their company grimaced whereas sipping masato, a fermented yucca-based drink handed round in a cup constructed from the hard-rind calabash tree fruit.

Films had been projected contained in the maloca, a cultural, political, social and religious centre.

Hundreds of dazzled spectators watched as pictures of hunts with blowguns, bows and arrows flashed earlier than their eyes, in addition to the tattoo competition that marks the approaching of age of younger Matis.

“We have to show other people and the whites that we have our own identity,” mentioned Kata Matis.

Children play on the Amacayacu river in San Martin de Amacayacu, Colombia | AFP

The movies “can help keep memories for the future … so we don’t forget our traditions,” added Yina Moran, 17.

Placed in blended teams, the Tikunas proposed three brief movies on seeds, medicinal crops and masato, with the assistance of Matis, the CTI and the French affiliation ForestEver.

“The cameras blended into the landscape and families were more willing to share and communicate,” mentioned ForestEver coordinator Claire Davigo.

Exotic experiences

San Martin de Amacayacu, surrounded by a lush pure park, is made up of wood homes, some with colourful painted partitions, which can be house to a number of generations of the identical household.

Apprentices and their mentors spent the day conducting interviews and filming day by day life.

“The communication was wonderful because although we hardly speak Portuguese, we understood each other through our cultures,” mentioned Moran.

In the afternoon, locals made their means right down to the river to scrub garments or bathe.

At night time, mills had been fired as much as present 4 hours of electrical energy.

After that, the noise stopped to make means for jungle sounds.

Tikuna and Matis indigenous individuals edit their documentary brief movies with the help of the ForestEver French affiliation and the Brazilian Indigenous Work Center in San Martin de Amacayacu, Colombia | AFP

A decade after they had been first contacted, the Matis had been already the “stars of exotic reports” by US, Japanese, French and British journalists, in line with the CTI.

Foreigners had been captivated by their physique artwork and equipment: ears pierced with large ornaments, high quality rods passing via noses and lips, face tattoos and our bodies draped in jewellery.

But Kata Matis complained that “many people wanted to go to the village … filming without our authorization, without our understanding, and then they took the material” with out sharing it.

To stop a repeat, the Matis started writing their very own historical past in 2017.

Living ‘with two worlds’

Since arriving in San Martin, Dame Betxun Matis, 27, has not put down his digicam.

He took half in producing the “Matis tattoo festival” documentary that received the jury prize on the Kurumin indigenous cinema competition in 2021.

The movie demonstrates the custom of marking the face, a apply deserted by younger individuals who confronted discrimination in cities.

A Matis indigenous man and a Tikuna indigenous man pose for an image in San Martin de Amacayacu, Colombia | AFP

Kata Matis satisfied the group to renew the custom and filmed as some 90 younger individuals underwent the ritual.

On the Matis’ final night time in San Martin, a whole bunch of locals crammed the maloca to look at the Tikunas’ brief movies.

After a lot laughter, applause and shared masato, Kata Matis mirrored on the place of indigenous individuals in trendy nation-states.

“We don’t live between two worlds, we live with two worlds,” he mentioned.