A tiny piece of big learning
- The films of the Quibdó Africa Film Festival are a tiny piece of great teachings.
As an Afro woman, I have learned to recognize myself in the characters of many of the films we saw last year.
It rains. In the middle of the evening chatter, born to mitigate the anxiety while patiently waiting for the downpour to end in downtown Quibdó, a couple of teenagers, students of the MIA School, smile with their eyes while their lips, thirsty, look in their own way at the lightness of the water falling on the asphalt.
Literally, naive coquetry wets those souls. An innate scene, worthy of being captured by the photographic gaze of Chocoan filmmaker Jhonny Hendrix.
Then, she tears down the wall of discretion and the Chocoan words, those that are emblematic and magical within the territory, show their heads in a sporadic but meaningful chat.
- I imagine you are going with your girlfriend. I was told that you are the neighborhood's player.
- Who told you that?
- I'd better not tell you, because you're too much of a troublemaker.
- I'm not going to fight with anyone.
In that flurry of bodies huddled outside a shop, the eyes never stop falling in love. A brief silence sets the scene to music. The rain rages and the words peek out again.
- We get to see all the Colombian films.
- So do we, and we have to choose a film and write an essay.
- Last year, the teacher got tired of watering me on the way out and asking me to hand in the essay of a movie we saw at the Festival. I loved the story, but writing is not my thing.
These days, the Quibdó Africa Film Festival is one of the main topics of conversation in the city's schools. In a month's time, the seventh art will be peacefully strolling through pupils, thoughts, taxing memories and non-transferable emotions.
The MIA School is one of the main venues. There, among desks and aromas of high school dreams on the walls, culture lovers will gather on September 12 to watch the Peruvian documentary The Rumba Kings, the film chosen for the official opening.
On those days, as the film unfolds, the distinctive words of Chocó enjoy a remarkable prominence. The students keep repeating them as they comment and make jokes under their breath.
It is only fair to bring up a scene from the last Festival:
- That what nalgatory is that? - said Mario, the most joking ninth grader, as he watched the voluptuousness of the protagonist of an African film.
- Leave your bullshit and watch the movie," answered Rosita, the group's inveterate movie buff, laughing.
- This boy is going to get a beating for going around and dislocated," added José Luis, Mario's best friend.
For Wilfrid Massamba, its director, the objective is to help young people learn to see film as a powerful political, social and cultural discourse. A discourse that transforms lives and mentalities through stories that are born at the roots of the Afro-descendant realities that shape the lives of people in Colombia, Latin America, North America, Europe and Africa.
More than recognition or profit, Massamba pursues a life purpose: to help write new chapters in the historical memory of the Afro-descendants of the Colombian Pacific through audiovisuals. He blindly believes that Chocó is full of writers and filmmakers, political subjects who are called to change the destiny of their society. He has been able to verify this in the production workshops that are part of the annual program.
This year, the central topic will be legacy as a sacred nexus of human beings. The filmography chosen by the Festival team is a unique journey through deep Colombia. The one where everyday realities provide fascinating narratives, connected to the feelings of the Afro-descendants who live in this region of the country.
Today, after three festivals and an unexpected pandemic that hit the cultural sector, Massamba's purpose is as strong as the downpour in the here and now of the two teenagers in downtown Quibdó.
- Aren't you going to tell me who told you that I was the neighborhood's player?
- I'm not a rat.
- Now I don't give you a ride on my bicycle.
- Let's talk about movies.
- The Festival is a month away.
- What was the last film you saw?
Withering silence. Without speaking, the boy has said a lot. And it is precisely this silence that justifies the raison for being of the Quibdó Africa Film Festival. The goal is that in a few years, the Festival will contribute significantly to the formation of audiences and the construction of a political and critical thinking from the cinema as a historical narrative of the realities of the Chocoan population.
From the very moment Massamba decides to create this audiovisual and cultural project, a journey that forces him to face daily obstacles of all kinds, he has envisioned a Chocó where documentary and fictional narratives invite analysis, reflection and re-signification of concepts and thoughts, because all cultural and symbolic legacy must be questioned.
- I like action movies. Cinema where there is no movement makes me sleepy because I don't understand it.
- That is why it is important that the Festival is supported in Quibdó. We need to learn to watch movies to transform our thinking.
- We are teenagers, we have a long way to go to achieve that.
- We have to start now. As an Afro woman, I want to have a different vision from that of my grandmother and my mother. Cinema allows you to question many things.
- You say that because you are fond of watching movies.
Even the disagreement doesn't stop their eyes from smiling at each other for a moment. If one were the scriptwriter of this casual story, he would have to give her gaze a supernatural power to make him fall madly in love with that cinema where it is not necessary to have explosions or gunshots to be exciting. Patience. Massamba and his team will make it happen.
In this fourth edition of the Festival, Colombian cinema offers wonderful titles: Los chivos no comen corozo by Nicolás Cuervo Rincón, a journey to Los Moreneros, an Afro village in La Guajira inhabited by a community with ancient black culinary knowledge; Con el pelo cucú by James de Alba, winner of the Relatos en serie call by the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications (MINTIC), which will be premiered in Quibdó; o En lo profundo de la ciénaga by Camilo Cortés, a journey into the world of Chima, a woman who dives into the waters to collect golf balls from an ostentatious complex near her humble neighborhood.
Evening falls. It is late in the afternoon. The bodies return to their busy walk. She and he want to remain tied to that piece of platform to talk about movies and smile with their eyes while their thirsty lips observe the landing of the drops of water on the asphalt.
- Give me a ride on your bike and take me home.
- First ask your mother's permission.
- My mother gives me permission.
- I don't believe you, you're cheating on me.
At this point, the curious reader is entitled to know their identities: Mario and Rosita, the prankster and the inveterate movie buff. Before starting, she gives him a kiss on the cheek. He remains motionless, between surprised and excited.
- I hope that this year you will let me see the films. Last year, you had a lot of crap.
- Shall we sit together?
- I'll think about it.
Mutual looks that struggle not to detach. The bicycle starts slowly, as if delaying the inevitable. A romance is born. Moments like this, worthy of a scene from a Jhonny Hendrix movie, also make Wilfrid Massamba happy because cinema invokes feelings and learning; and as Rosita rightly says, the films of the Quibdó Africa Film Festival are a tiny piece of great teachings.
Mamá Quibdó
Dictionary of Chocoan languages:
Aguaitar: to be patient, to wait, to endure.
Bujon: a person who likes to pick fights.
Campeche: person who is out of place
Chompi: to ask for a ride in a vehicle
Nalgatorio: very big buttock
Ñingrí: small amount
Pichazo: Very hard blow given to someone
Quebrador: Man who does well with women
Sirirí: pendejada or joda (joke)
Tramar: to attract attention, to convince
For a complete list of Colombian films participating this year, click here: https://es.quibdoafricafilmfestival.com/national-competition-2022
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