Thanks to Truthout Cinema, the (literally) underground cinema in Stokescroft, Bristol, This blog has just caught up with ALUNA: a documentary made for BBC2 by Alan Ereira, although halfway through its shooting, the subjects, the Kogi tribe of Colombia, took over the camera.
The men of the Kogi refer to themselves singly and collectively as the Mama - they see them selves as the loving guardians of their river and surrounding networks. They understand that there are critical connections within the natural world. They know this from generations of experience rather than reading “Chaos”. The Kogi also believe that without thought, nothing could exist. Their concern is that, as well as physically plundering the world’s resources, we are messing with the thought holding existence together. (see Unspeak) The film showed us one dried riverbed and its source, a one-time lake shrunken by ‘development’.
An undercurrent in the story was how the director got wised-up to the Kogi philosophy, in full view of the camera. The tribe’s message to the Old World / industry / western development projects, collectively named ‘Little Brother’ is to protect the rivers - which seems as good a place to start as anywhere.
The good news is that since an earlier 90 minute collaboration has been on TV, it has had huge global impact, repeated on BBC2 and then in other countries - according to the movie’s own website, www.alunathemovie.com , 30 times in the US last year.
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