/ARTS WEEKLY/FILM-COLOMBIA: Bringing Local Productions to Rural Areas, Slums

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Yadira Ferrer

BOGOTA, Nov 26 2002 (IPS) - The ”suitcase of film” project has already brought local productions to half a million peasant farmers, as well as residents of shantytowns, throughout Colombia.

The Culture Ministry’s itinerant video project plans to eventually bring local and Latin American movies to a majority of rural villages, even in the most far-flung parts of this civil war-torn country.

To carry out the project, which has the backing of the public and private Mixed Fund for the Promotion of Filmmaking and the Colombian Film Heritage Foundation, Culture Ministry authorities have signed agreements with provincial and municipal cultural offices that have the capacity to bring the films to the greatest possible number of rural communities.

The project is also an important element in the process of recuperating Colombia’s filmmaking heritage, which got under way in 2000. The first step towards that aim was the selection of films that represent national cinematography at its best.

The first ”suitcase of film” toured the country in August 2001, after a careful selection of material by a panel of film critics: Hernando Martínez, Hugo Cahaparro, Enrique Pulecio, Rito Torres, Juan Caicedo and Diego Rojas.

Eighteen films were selected, including ”Visa USA” directed by Lisandro Duque, Carlos Mayolo’s ”Carne de tu carne” (Flesh of Your Flesh), ”La vendedora de rosas” (The Rose Seller) and ”Rodrigo D” by Víctor Gaviria, and ”Soplo de vida” (Breath of Life) by Luis Ospina.

The goal of the panel was to choose quality films representing different periods in Colombian history, which would contribute to an analysis of national affairs, while making it possible to appreciate the country’s cultural diversity, said Culture Ministry authorities.

While the first ”suitcase” was still touring the country, the second one was organised, consisting of 29 films that have begun to be exhibited in small town cultural centres and city government headquarters, cinema clubs, and educational institutions.

Among the films making up the second ”suitcase” were 15 from other Latin American countries, including two Cuban films, ”Memories of Underdevelopment” directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, and ”The Elephant and the Bicycle” by Juan Carlos Tabio.

Local audiences have also been offered ”Camila” by Argentine director María Luisa Bemberg, ”La ciudad y los perros” (The City and the Dogs) from Francisco Lombardi in Peru, and ”La reina de la noche” (The Queen of the Night) by Mexican director Arturo Ripstein.

The Culture Ministry’s director of filmmaking, Claudia Aguilera, told IPS that the main aim of the project is to disseminate Colombian films, ”which are difficult to gain access to because they are basically shown in large cities.”

Aguilera said the videos have already been seen by more than 500,000 spectators in 300 municipalities, which represent 30 percent of Colombian territory.

The ”suitcase” project has also visited slum neighbourhoods in large cities, where there are no movie theatres, and whose inhabitants do not normally have a chance to go to the movies.

The organisers of the initiative, which has no end date, hope to take their ”suitcases of films” to 80 percent of Colombian territory, which is divided into a total of 800 municipalities, despite the violence involving leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug traffickers and the army.

The third phase of the project will present ”the suitcase of children’s films”, with 44 movies revolving around the central themes of solidarity, cultural diversity, tolerance and environmental conservation.

Local critic Sigifredo Eusse said the project has been a good attempt to bring films to marginal sectors of the population – films that they would otherwise have no chance to see. However, he believes the films selected were not always the best choices.

While the locales are usually packed at the start of the showings in shantytowns, many people actually stand up and walk out during the films, he said.

According to Eusse, many of the films selected ”are slow-moving, a pace that clashes with what young people from these neighbourhoods are used to in the action films that television” brings to their homes.

But Julio Lara and Edgardo Olano, in charge of managing the ”suitcase of films” in the three Cinemateca del Caribe theatres in the northern city of Barranquilla, responded that the Colombian films have drawn large audiences, especially when ”Visa USA” and ”The Rose Vendor” were brought to the shantytowns.

”Visa USA” depicts the difficulties faced by Colombians who want to go to the United States to pursue ”the American dream”, while ”The Rose Vendor” was filmed with amateur actors who speak in popular street jargon.