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Tales of Shamans and Solidarity
Microcinema at the 4th Sydney Latin American Film Festival 2nd - 13th September 2009
Mon 7th Sep 6pm ‘The Healing’
Tue 8th Sep 6pm ‘When Clouds Clear’
Returning to Sydney Latin American Film Festival for its 4th year, the popular Micro-cinema sessions will bring audiences closer to the stories through engaging post film panel discussions.
This year the micro-cinema has been welcomed to the Dendy Cinema at Opera Quays as part of this year’s Sydney Latin American Film Festival. The program will explore community struggles against international mining giants in South America and Australia, and will unravel the world of traditional healing in developing countries.
The Healer (La Curacion) screens on Monday 8th September explores the realities of practising Shamans in Ecuador and the people who seek traditional medicine in a society that has adopted the paternalism of western medicine. The film takes stock of the evolving attitudes towards both forms of medicine and looks at the archaic stigmas attached to some conditions including epilepsy, viewed by some medical professionals in Ecuador as untreatable.
Kaplana Ram, (Acting) Head of Anthropology at Macquarie University will facilitate a panel of speakers including practising shamanic and indigenous healers on the subject of traditional medicine. The diverse panel of speakers will offer insight into traditional medicine in Latin American and Australia looking at how indigenous and traditional healing methods are finding their way back into the communities they belong. Byron Serrano, a member of Babana Mens Group and one of the facilitators of Redfern’s Family and Culture Day will join the panel to address the role mens groups play in the healing of communities.
Tuesday’s evening session will feature the emotionally charged documentary When Clouds Clear that follows an Ecuadorian community’s victorious resistance against an international mining company’s brazen attempts to infiltrate and control the remote town of Junín in northern Ecuador. Wooed by promises of wealth, and causing irreparable divisions between families and friends, suddenly these once peaceful farmers find themselves thrust into a dangerous world of corruption, splintered households, murder and arson as they fight to protect their land and families.
Local filmmaker Alejandra Canales will facilitate a post film panel discussion on mining, the question of sovereignty, and the struggle for authority over land. Linking the stories in the film to similar stories in Australia, the discussion will highlight the the Lake Cowal Campaign, an almost 20 year struggle that has been fought in Western NSW between traditional owners and an international mining company that is currently being fought in the Supreme Court. The speakers will offer insight into the similarities of the experiences in Australia with those in communities in Chile, Peru and Ecuador, looking at different aspects to the struggle from physical confrontation with private security employed by the companies to the legal battles fought and the hard campaigning needed to find support for the struggle. The discussion looks also to focus on the importance of land and resources within culture and at traditional laws that have long applied to the land in different communities. What effects are attributed to the displacement of communities from their land and what situations exist around the country that can be truly called examples of sustainable resource management.
The Sydney Latin American Film Festival also features exciting opening night fiestas, international guests, premiere feature films and fiestas featuring live music in the City and at Casula over 11 days.
Community Sponsorship Program
The Sydney Latin American Film Festival Community Sponsorship Program aims to
recognize and support the ongoing work of social justice, environmental conservation
and community development organisations across Latin America. This year, the
Sydney Latin American Film Festival will donate proceeds from the festival
ticket sales to a number of international organizations, including ‘Mission Mexico´ a refuge that houses over 50 children that is run by an Australian couple.