Refocus
317 Dundas St W, Toronto, ON M5T 1G4, Canada
43.65358019999999
-79.39264700000001
Description
Drawing from eclectic filmic styles including stop-motion animation, pseudo-public service announcements and testimonials, sometimes within a single film, this program features and celebrates the contemporary output of indigenous cinema. Collectively, the films presented grapple with the overarching question: how are indigenous communities appropriating a western medium such as cinema to express their lifeways? In many of the films young and old partake in creating a visual representation that reflect a vast cultural history, narrative traditions, and understanding of the known world. These films, mostly created by collectives, alter the age-old paradigm of the auteur as a lone genius.
PROGRAMME:
EL SUEÑO DE SONIA / SONIA'S DREAM
Director: Diego Sarmiento
Country: Peru Year: 2015 Lenght: 14’ Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: Sonia Mamani lives in Capachica, a peninsula of Lake Titicaca (Puno, Peru). She learned to cook at the age of fifteen and has been travelling ever since, teaching women not only how to prepare traditional dishes but also to appreciate their customs and identity.
PAI PAI EL ORIGEN DE LOS CELOS
Director: COMBO
Country: Mexico Year: Lenght: 1’05’’ Genre: Animation
Synopsis: Short from the series “68 voces - 68 corazones”.
They say there are two stars in the sky that are always together. The Pai Pais call them “the stars that fought out of jealousy”. The disturbance happened at night, stars gather around those two stars. Some tried to stop the fight while others were there only for the show. The fight was huge and while it happened, jealousy scattered all over our world. Only one, the ember star, was capable of pulling them apart and to make them forget what they were fighting about. That’s how the fights out of jealousy first started. That’s how the Pai Pais tell it.
XHUN
Director: Red Tz’ikin
Country: Guatemala Year: 2014 Lenght: 9’ Genre: Fiction
Synopsis: Xhun, a young Ixil man, confronts various challenges of his age. Misunderstood by his family, he may make a drastic life decision.
HUICHOL EL PRIMER AMANECER
Director: COMBO
Country: Mexico Year: 2015Lenght: 1’05’’ Genre: Animation
Synopsis: Short from the series “68 voces - 68 corazones”
The wixárika tell us that during the first hunt and the search for the Cerro da amanecer the deer offered to our ancestors giving them the peyote, while the moon gave us to his son who became Sun and gave rise to the first dawn.
UMA WAWA /WATER GIRL / NIÑA AGUA
Director: CEFREC/CAIB & Taller Ambulante de Formación Audiovisual TAFA
Country: Bolivia Year: 2016 Lenght: 2’28’’ Genre: Animation
Synopsis: This is the story of the sacred animals of the Altiplano, the valleys and the rainforest of Bolivia, who in their travels through the territories recognize how they change thanks to the development of the modern world. Until the animals get together again and give birth to a girl, the beautiful Uma Wawa, or water girl.
YAQUI, EL CHAPULIN BRUJO
Director: Gabriela Badillo
Country: Mexico Year: Lenght: 3’10’’ Genre: Animation
Synopsis: Short from the series “68 voces - 68 corazones”
A long time ago, a tree that was a prophet told the Yaqui people that a ferocious monster would arrive from the North. In preparation, the Yaqui set permanent warriors in different strategic points. Some time later, a great serpent appeared. After fighting it and losing two battles, Napowisáin Jisákame, commissioned the swallow to ask the sorcerer cricket for help oh behalf of the eight tribes. The swallow flew until it found the cricket, who, after giving it some thought, started sharpening its sawed legs, climbed a steep hill saying mysterious words and with a hard blow of its spurs jumped so far that anyone would need to walk eleven and a half days to cover the distance. Suddenly, as if fallen from the sky, the cricket appeared in the center of the Yaqui settlement. The Yaqui bathed it with an extract of twigs and green leafs and put it on a tree, as it had instructed them. When the monster approached the tree, the cricket jumped on him, delivering two brutal blows that severed the monster’s body. And this is how they got rid of the monster and the prophecy that the tree had made. Nevertheless, at the same time, a new prophecy was made…When the serpent died, it warned them that years later a new menace would come and they would have to face it even with more courage: white men with great weapons that would spit fire….
LAFKEN ÑI AZ / THE OCEAN REVEALS ITS KNOWLEDGE
Director: Escuela de Cine y Comunicación Mapuche del Aylla Rewe Budi
Country: Chile - Canada Year: 2016 Lenght: 8’01’’ Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: The ocean, with its colours, sounds and energies infuse with spirit and wisdom the dialogue between two young girls and their grandfathers. We, Mapuche Lafkenche, observe the ocean's Az so that we may become one with it, maintaining the balance of our relationship with this space that we call Lafkenmapu.
USHUI
Director: Colectivo de comunicadores Bunkuaneiuman (“Para una mejor comunicación”)
Country: Colombia Year: 2014 Lenght: 44’ Genre: Documentary
Synopsis: Teresa Mamatacan, a young woman from the town of Kemakúmake is worried about the constant changes that her culture has been submitted to by major western society advances. Proof of this are the facts that she can not sing nor dance in the traditional way. Her husband Juan Ramón advices her to seek support in Las Sangas Colasa Mojica and María Elena Díngula. Juan Ramón invites the documentary director to record Teresa’s learning process in Ushui or ceremonial feminine house. The filmmaking team gets together with the authorities of Kemakúmake, and among themselves they create a program to document the experience in a way that strengthens their ancestral cultural identity. In this way Teresa and her friend María Luisa go to Ushui, guided by the major Sagas. Their interactions are described, step by step, by the cameras of the wiwas. The oral transmission of the Law of Origin, the role of the women in the culture, the learning of songs and sacred dances, the traditional behaviour they must follow, the use of their clothes and the treatment of illnesses are all part of the knowledge of the Sagas, delivered to the young women in numerous sessions day and night. Teresa tells her husband what she has learned and how she feels more secure and at ease thanks to the knowledge shared by the Sagas.
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Start:
2017-06-08T19:00:00-04:00
End:
2017-06-08T20:30:00-04:00
Category
Film
Tickets
Students & Seniors (with ID)
8.99
CAD
Regular Screening
11.09
CAD
All-Access Pass
79.34
CAD