In its sixth edition, the International Festival of Cinema and Indigenous Arts in Wallmapu (FICWALLMAPU) of Chile gave the award of “Community Cinema” to the short film “Sara Mama: Sacred Seed” by the unanimous decision of an indigenous jury.
The short film takes us to the Andes of Peru, where a Quechua boy shows his unique relationship with Sara Mama (Mother Corn) and reveals the knowledge that it holds in its productive cycles. The shooting took place in the San Francisco de Pujas community in Ayacucho.
According to the jury, the award was granted “for its contribution to community processes in indigenous territories, its contribution and view from the ancestral practices of sowing and food sovereignty through childhood, for his unforgettable Quechua speaking protagonist, who weaves the story with a good editing rhythm and participation in observing the Quechua people’s communal work.”
This short film was produced collectively by CHIRAPAQ and indigenous Quechua youth, who took part in script writing, pre-production and filming.
The International Festival of Cinema and Indigenous Arts in Wallmapu has been held for six years with the purpose of becoming a platform to promote intercultural dialogue, which constitutes a relevant social process for the territory and also a contribution to relations between peoples and nations. It gathers filmmakers from Chile, America and the world, around the development and production of cinema and the arts with the theme of ancestral peoples.
This 2021, FICWALLMAPU focused its attention on the autonomy and government proposals of indigenous peoples, choosing 51 films from 36 ancestral peoples and 16 countries grouped in the categories of Defence of the Territory, Indigenous Women, Indigenous Arts, Indigenous Autonomies and Governments, Choyün (cinema for children) and Ancestral Diversities. Of this selection, 20 titles were authored by indigenous, Afro-descendant and diasporic peoples, from 16 countries.
The jury was conformed by the Colombian filmmaker and women’s rights defender, Mileidy Domicó; the Mapuche visual artist, Marcela Huitraiqueo; the sociologist and founder of the Virtual Mapuche Documentation Center Ñuke Mapu, Jorge Calbucura; the Ecuadorian indigenous communicator, Eliana Champutiz; and the Aymara filmmaker, Esteban Cruz.
“Sara Mama: Sacred Seed” will be showcased at the II Short Film Festival. PARWARIMUN MUHU A seed that is born, from February 18 to 20 via Facebook through the Jacarandá Producciones page. The program also features “Noñantari”, another of CHIRAPAQ’s community film production that reflects the feelings of an Asháninka girl, the violences she faces, and her dream for a love that is free and that gives her freedom.
For more than six years, CHIRAPAQ has promoted spaces for cinematographic creation so that indigenous youth can reconnect with their cultural roots and express their wishes and problems through audio-visual materials. The initiative promotes a new encounter with the wise elderly men and women of their communities, preserving their ancestral knowledge and the memory of their peoples through the cinema.
