North Carolina Latin American Film Festival 2023
Being Plants | Ser Plantas
Plants are at the first level of every food chain. Autotrophs are usually plants or one-celled organisms. Scientists call them “producers” because they make their own food. Nearly all autotrophs use a process called photosynthesis to create “food” (a nutrient called glucose) from sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water. In Indigenous America, Inti (the sun) is the god of life, the creator of photosynthesis. Cinema is another form of photosynthesis, a light that creates food for inspiration. NCLAFF 2023 will be honoring plants, as present in the everyday, in the landscape, and the economies that have had an important impact in the region (timber, rubber, sugar, banana, coca, etc.). Not all festival films will have plants as a theme, but every person lives within a landscape shaped, contained, and supported by them.
Curated by Miguel Rojas-Sotelo and Manuel Sánchez Cabrera
Sep. 29. Rubenstein Film Theater, 51. 7:00 pm
WE ARE GUARDIANS.
Edivan Guajajara / Mídia Índia, Chelsea Greene, Rob Grobman, 2023, 82 min. In Portuguese, Tupi, and English with English subtitles.
Thousands of people are illegally camped on protected land in the Brazilian Amazon, killing centuries-old trees for export and mining rare resources.
Sep. 30. Richard White Lecture Hall, 51. 5:00 pm
USERS.
Natalia Almada, USA/Mexico, 2021, 81 min. In English some Spanish.
Users begin with a mother’s question–will my children love the perfect machines more than they love me, their imperfect mother/nature? This question guides an inquiry into the intimate relationship Western society has with technology while degrading the living systems that support it.
Oct. 2. Mandela Auditorium, UNC-CH. 7:00 pm
SUGAR CANE MALICE | MAL DE CAÑA.
Juan A. Zapata, Dominican Republic/Spain, 2021, 76 min. Spanish with English subtitles.
A documentary about the working conditions of Haitian workers in one of the largest sugar cane plantations in the world, located in the Dominican Republic and belonging to the Fanjul Family, one of the most powerful families in America.
Oct. 5. Richard White Lecture Hall, 51. 7:00 pm
UTAMA.
Alejandro Loayza Grisi. Bolivia. 2022. 87 min. Spanish and Quechua with English subtitles.
In the arid Bolivian highlands, an elderly Quechua couple has been living a tranquil life for years. While he takes their small herd of llamas out to graze, she keeps house and walks for miles with the other local women to fetch precious water. When an uncommonly long drought threatens everything, they know, Virginio and Sisa must decide whether to stay and maintain their traditional way of life or admit defeat and move in with family members in the city.
Oct. 6. Mandela Auditorium, UNC-CH. 7:00 pm
FOREST MIND.
Ursula Biemann, Inga Community. Colombia/Ecuador. 2021. 31 min. Spanish and Inga with English subtitles.
Drawing on scientific as well as shamanic perspectives of engaging with the world, the project takes an eco-centric worldview. To bring the shamanic science of Ayahuasca into dialog with the Western-scientific perspective. How do plants speak to humans?
-and-
POLINIZADORXS. Resistencia en la Península de Yucatán.
Lilia Torres. Mexico 2022. 74 min. Spanish and Yucatec Maya with English subtitles.
In dialogue with nature, indigenous inhabitants express their relationship with the territory, the threats it currently faces and their perspective on what would happen if the "Iron Serpent" were to arrive (the so-called Maya Train). The testimonies, given in symbolic spaces for those who defend life, take us into an intimate universe of concerns about the devastation caused by the current development model and its amplification if the megaproject were to be implemented.
Oct. 17 Mandela Auditorium, UNC-CH. 7:00 pm
THIS STOLEN COUNTRY OF MINE | Este país que me robaron.
Marc Wiese. Ecuador/Germany. 2022. 93 min. Spanish with English subtitles.
Chinese mining in Ecuador’s mountains sets the stage for an epic battle between eco-guerrillas and a corrupt government in an intensely dramatic documentary. This Stolen Country of Mine follows Paúl Jarrín Mosquera, who leads the indigenous resistance against the exploitation of their land. Meanwhile, China uses the Ecuadorian government to turn the country into one of its new colonies, having made the country dependent on credit through a series of corrupt and greedy treaties. When journalist Fernando Villavicencio exposes these plots and gets access to the contracts between China and Ecuador, the government wants him silenced too.
*Villavicencio was killed as a presidential candidate on August 9, 2023.