U.N. Salutes Indigenous Filmmakers

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Jennifer Leong

UNITED NATIONS, Aug 11 2010 (IPS) - The United Nations celebrated the International Day of the World’s Indigenous People this week by showcasing award- winning short films produced by indigenous filmmakers and reaffirming indigenous rights and cultural treasures.

The day was observed at the New York headquarters of the U.N. Monday, marking the midpoint of the Second International Decade of the World’s Indigenous People.

As proclaimed by the General Assembly, the goal of the decade is the further strengthening of international cooperation to solve problems faced by indigenous people in such areas as culture, education, health, human rights, the environment and social and economic development.

This year’s theme is indigenous filmmaking, which ties in with the theme of the current session of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII), ‘Development with Culture and Identity’.

Through the expressive medium of film, indigenous filmmakers opened the window into their lives for the wider audience.

“We’re such a visual community today, people read about things but they forget. Film allows you to… almost delve into other people’s world. It is a great way of communicating people’s stories,” Alex Zacarias, director of “Taíno Indians: Counted out of Existence”, one of the four films screened on this special occasion, told IPS.

“Like ghosts among people”, some people still claim that the Taíno do not exist, that they have become extinct, he said.

“Well, I am here,” said the director.

“We will write ourselves back into history,” one of his interviewees echoed in the film.

The three other films shown were “Ivan and Ivan” by Phillip Abryutin, “Sikumi” (On the Ice) by Andrew Okpeaha MacLean, and “Curte-Nillas” by Per-Josef Idivuoma.

MacLean’s film, shot near his hometown of Barrow, Alaska and the first ever made in the Inupiaq language, won the Jury Prize for Short Filmmaking at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

The 15-minute film is set on the bleak, expansive Arctic ice, where an Inupiaq seal hunter witnesses his fellow tribesmen murder another, and asks what the meaning of justice is in a close-knit community where people rely on each other for survival.

In a transitional time when aspects of Western culture had just begun to assert themselves in the Arctic, the tensions between settling matters within the community and resorting to an external penal system was painfully pertinent.

The film demonstrates one of the great values of indigenous filmmaking – the sensitivity of an insider who is telling a personal story.

“I think it’s possible for outsiders to have a complex viewpoint and be an observer with a kind of integrity… but I don’t think it’s possible for an outsider to write something inside. I think it’s only so far that you can go unless you grew up within,” MacLean said at a press conference.

But the director did not see his films as shaping social and political discussions.

“My role is to find and tell stories that are true to the community and true to the world that is up there… to start expressing ourselves in our own voices,” he told IPS.

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon highlighted some of the more pressing problems faced by the world’s more than 370 million self-identified indigenous peoples at the ceremony’s opening remarks.

“Indigenous peoples still suffer disproportionate poverty, poor health and racism. Their languages, religions and cultural traditions are often shunned,” he said.

Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs Sha Zukang, who also spoke at the gathering, hoped the day’s event would create a “renewed sense of responsibility of what the international community can do to enhance the overall status of human rights of indigenous peoples and protect their cultural treasures.”

The world’s indigenous populations are spread across some 70 countries, although nearly three-quarters live in the Asia and Pacific regions. In Latin America alone, there are more than 400 different indigenous peoples, each with a distinct language and culture.

The landmark United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, adopted by the General Assembly in September 2007 after years of negotiations, reaffirms the rights of indigenous peoples to the full enjoyment of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to be free from any kind of discrimination and the right to self-determination.

Since the adoption of the declaration, some governments have made considerable efforts to redress social and economic injustices, but indigenous peoples still find themselves frequently marginalised, dispossessed of their lands and impoverished.