Ficamazonía: the film festival that aims to highlight productions from Amazonian communities

Every day, more and more of the indigenous peoples and communities of the Amazon and part of the south of the country are creating their own films to show their realities, thoughts and artistic expressions, far from the views usually presented on the few screens to which they have access.

(In context: COP16: Changing the way we grow food is urgent for Colombia and the world, says FAO)

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This is the opinion of Amanda Quijano, artistic director and executive producer of the Ficamazonía International Travelling Film Festival, which is dedicated to promoting this type of production.

It is absolutely appropriate that we are here because we are bringing the message of Amazonian cinema, which is related to biodiversity and the link that exists between the Andean and Amazonian ecosystems," explains the director.

The festival director says that this initiative was born out of the need to tell stories and expressions from the Amazon, not only in Colombia, but also in the region shared with Brazil and Peru.

"Ficamazonía was born as a response to this need to project Amazonian cinema and give its filmmakers a window to show themselves, especially their environmental views," she says.

Although he believes that audiovisual production in the Amazon is not very extensive at the moment, he appreciates the effort that these populations are making to show themselves to the world through the seventh art. For this reason, the organisation of the festival is carrying out a process of audience and production training, which has managed to encourage more people to decide to tell their realities.

"Since a few years ago, and with this boom in the possibility of respecting the rights and self-determination of indigenous peoples, Amazonian cinema has been growing. And we at Ficamazonía make a huge effort to ensure that as many young people as possible have access to the courses we run: film courses, audiovisual storytelling courses that allow them to tell their own stories. This is how we do the film festival," adds the festival director.

With regard to Amazonian productions, Amanda Quijano stresses their respect for tradition, ancestral wisdom and medicine.

"Their narrative almost always has a lot to do with cosmogonies, with traditions, with ancestral wisdom, with traditional medicine. These are things we don't know about, and it would be very good if we knew a lot more about them," explains the festival director.

As for the programme, she explains: "On Tuesday the 29th we will be in Casarq, a place like Los Cristales, and we will present Amazonian cinema, also with the presence of some personalities who have participated in this film. And on the 30th and 31st of October there will be the two big Galas of Amazonian Cinema, which will take place in the Teatrino de la Tertulia. And we will have a giant screen, a spectacular gala and we will present two great films at 7 pm".