Colombia: Indigenous Wayuu Film Festival 'Reclaims Narratives'

Uribia – a mostly Indigenous municipality in Guajira, Colombia – will host the eighth Wayuu Film and Video Showcase between September 5 and 9, organized by the Putchimaajana Communications Network of the Wayuu People.

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This year's edition will focus for the first time on the works of Indigenous Wayuu women, marking the 'International Day of the Indigenous Woman.' It will feature special discussions highlighting their work in the audiovisual field: "perspectives that show other realities, other ways of telling stories and making history."

The festival will screen 28 productions at the Plaza Colombia, in the Mapuain Indigenous community, and the San Jose and El Matadero neighborhoods of Uribia, starting at 7 p.m. local time.

The main aim is to give visibility to audiovisual projects originating in the Colombian Guajira, in order to preserve the stories of the Wayuu people on the big screen. The festival also plans to "return to the Wayuu people the images and sounds that others have borrowed for each film."

According to the organizers, the festival is designed "to form a Wayuu public that can debate the ways in which our stories are being narrated, creating commitment and critique dynamics about what's seen in the culture of screenings for children and young people."

The Putchimaajana Communications Network of the Wayuu People has been organizing the festival for 10 years, and this edition is supported by the National Plan of Indigenous Television, one outcome of the 2017 negotiations between Indigenous communities, the National Communication Commission of the Indigenous Peoples (Concip) and Colombia's government.

Besides the open-air screenings, showing narratives from and by the Wayuu people, the festival will also include workshops and conferences aimed at fostering local talent.

More than 75 children have been registered to take part in photography workshops run by Andres Mosquera, who is known as 'Waosolo' and runs a project titled 'Fall In Love With Choco.'