Documentary's sinopsis

Our history is in our land
(a documentary)
Length: 85 minutes
Director: Eliezer Arias
Year: 2008

Our History is in the Land is a documentary that attempts to get close to the issue of Indigenous land demarcation in Venezuela. This issue has become relevant in recent times due to the 1999 constitution, which recognizes indigenous rights. Through the oral testimony of a diversity of actors linked to the process (representatives of different indigenous groups, anthropologists, technicians, elected officials, religious leaders, military personnel, etc) the documentary confront different points of views about the complexities related to indigenous territories through the context of the relationships built between different peoples and cultures that are subjected to a civilizing discourse, based on the model of Nation State, sovereignty, and national cohesion.

The documentary is developed during a journey throughout the territories of three different indigenous people: Pemon, Yabarana, and Mapoyo. Theses locations are the backdrop that expose some of the conflicts and contradictions between the groups’ desire to exercise their rights over their land and for self-determination on one hand, and the multiple interests (economic, political, religious, etc) on the other. In addition to contributing to the debate about the struggle for indigenous territories, this documentary offers a visual and reflexive narrative of a complex situation that the majority of the Venezuelan population is not aware of.

Filming my first long documentary: Our history is in the land

These are some photos from my very first long documentary entitled Our history is in the land. We spent 5 weeks travelling the South of the Orinoco River in Venezuela. Visiting communities of three different ethnical groups (Pemon, Yabarana, Mapoyo), marvelous mountains.....

From Cambodia to Vietnam

To arrive to Vietnam for the first time was fantastic, mainly because Cambodia depresses for its poverty, and the color is something between red and brown, girls requesting money in street, people sleeping in the Tuk Tuk and Cyclos stop to begin the new day looking for some client, "buhoneros" in Caracas are nothing to do in comparison with those of Cambodia. The majority, including children of five year olds, speak English to be able to sell something to tourists… Vietnam, or Saigon at least, is green, and one feels the difference. Even it is the country in Asia that has grown economically faster, the poverty is also present, but is different that in Cambodia. In Saigon I was in a guesthouse called Lucky, Lucky, and I noticed that almost everything here and in Cambodia has to do with the luck or good fortune… I paid 15 dollars, that is already a fortune for what I paid in Cambodia, and not of luck indeed,. But the room was well comfortable. That afternoon, after going to the river, I had lunch near the river and joking with a Vietnamese girl testing my qualities with the language (aside from the amount of signs that sometimes I use to communicate), I was invited by her to know part of Saigon the following day, before she had to go to work at 11 AM … The following morning, the girl was exactly at 8 o’clock at the door of the hotel in a super motorcycle… I must let you know that in Saigon they must have about 4 million inhabitants, and at least 3 million motorcycles… very impressive! to cross a street is an adventure of the other world, but in the end you take hold the taste to confront thousands of motorbikes trying to avoid you while you walk, even so no one hits nor touches you… An Austrian friend called this the theory of the chaos, that is to say, better not try to put order in the chaos, because surely it would be worse… there are almost no traffic lights… With the Vietnamese girl, aside from the adventure of motorcycling Saigon, we went to the Museum of the American War, as they call the one we know as the War of Vietnam … They also call it the Second War of Indochina… It was the first time that she visited the museum, something that seems incredible to me, but it is part of the present reality of Vietnam. I believe that young people, although a unique party even exists and it is a socialist country, do not stop much to think what happened here… There are sites that seems you to be in the Mercedes of Caracas… Restaurants with decorations high tech… etc. but like in Bangkok you notices the rural thing in the city, also partly because there is a massive exodus from the towns to the great cities like Hanoi and Saigon. The museum is well explanatory of which happened in Vietnam according to the Vietnamese’s. I also went to one species of ethnologic museum of Vietnam. In the end the girl had to go away to work and I had to go to take my airplane to Hanoi, at the north of Vietnam. In Hanoi I went to a zone in the coast called Halong Bay… You have to imagine the Great Savannah, but cover by the sea… Thus it is Halong Bay, where I spent one night in a boat…I follow the story …. The flight from Saigon to Hanoi was 2 hours, remember they are in opposite part; Saigon was the capital of South Vietnam and Hanoi the capital of North Vietnam, before the reunification in 1975 with the "taking" of Saigon. Hanoi is very clean and quite green. In the airport I made plans for my trip to Halong Bay. I paid 35 dollars altogether, a tour that includes transport of Hanoi roundtrip in Van that takes two hours and a half, all the meals (two lunches, a supper in the boat, and a breakfast) and a room in the boat that was super comfortable and with toilet included. Briefly, a gangue… I stayed in a very comfortable hostel, and there I met a couple from the Canary Islands. He had been living in Venezuela when he was 18 years old, in Puerto de la Cruz. That night we went away to take wine and to have supper the three of us in a bar with the best view of Hanoi and from where we could see million of motorcycles went all towards a center, like a spiral or something thus, all managed to pass through a bridge or something like that, I don’t know.…
The following day, Halong Bay, great! I went with a pair of Vietnamese’s who used to live in Hawaii first and later they changed to San Francisco, a pair of Austrians, two French, one couple of Thais, a Taiwanese and a Briton. The Briton was at least of 70 years old, and he had been for a month crossing along all Vietnam, according to him he has a Thai girlfriend. It was super cool, just as the others. It is difficult to describe Halong Bay, but as I told you is like the bulk guayanes but covered by the sea… We crossed everything in a Vietnamese boat, between traditional and modern, that is to say, of wood but without the old candles… The disk was incredible and at sunset there was a Full Moon, everything had been very well prepared!!. That night we passed it taking beer in the boat after the supper, and joking. The Briton was even making jokes of Charles and Camilla… The humorous Vietnamese is specialist in massages in San Francisco, but only of women according to him …
The second day in Halong Bay we went to swim in a beach and to raise a mountain to have a view of everything. The previous day we visited two Caves, one of them was used in the War against the gringos like hospital, since it was totally hidden, well, it is a cave. The third day I went back to Hanoi where I tried to know something, but I did not have time to visit the tomb of Ho Chi Minh… but, what is the importance of seeing a mommies body, equally, not to bother him, I didn’t Esther visit the one of Mao here in Beijing… Of Hanoi I went to Bangkok again and I stayed again in the inn of the noisy and perverted Khaosan Road. They gave me the room that it was near the street. I did not have another option but to take it. I was very light of clothes during my trip because I left most of my things there.. … All the other "mochileros" (people in the same adventure than me) were astonished the light I walked. In addition, wherever I went I bought some t-shirt. In Cambodia I bought three by 4 dollars.

From Thailand to Cambodia

I am in Vietnam after spending 6 days in Cambodia... Cambodia was really an adventure.. I didn't take Gwen's advise of flying to Siem Reap so I spent 14 hours in a bus that wasdriving at 20 miles/hour. I got Siem Reap at 10 pm.. Crossing the border and getting the bloody visa was a nightmare.. Finally they wrote down in my visa ElieGer instead of Eliezer... So in the immigration desk that look like any border immigration desk people like crazy trying to guess who this guy was...Then the road from the border to siam reap was very bumpy and because of the flood we were very busy pushing the fucking scrap-like bus up every 2 kilometers... But the only excuse I have it is that the bus ticket was just USD 7 and flight one was $120... Anyway I enjoy Angkor Wat and surrounding with three English guys and a Swiss girl that I met during the trip...
I wrote you the last time from Phnom Penh, capital of Cambodia coming from Siem Reap and Ankor… What I did there? Well, after six hours in a bus where they had a TV like the ones they put in Venezuela but instead of a film of violence they put an humorous program in Cambodian… all in the bus, I imagine Cambodians, went dead of the laughter… Later they put musical comedies Karaoke type that several around my they made cores. Anyway… I arrived at Phnom Penh and immediately took my moto-taxi, that took me to a travel agency to made my visa Vietnamese and then to a hostel. Everything by 1 American dollar. Perhaps you can imagine me with my backpack from the airport in a small motorbike. The hostel was $8 per night, with air conditioned and toilet, and was near the river… On the following day my plan was a little dark… First to visit the famous S21 jail, and then to go to the Killing Fields (did you see the film?)…

I rented a Tuk Tuk, and I had to pay for the whole day $10. The S21 is really dark, I spent two hours in S21 to be able to swallow as much terror… it could sounds masoquista of my part, but really that was here hardly three decades away, it was unimaginable here. But the incredible thing is this is one of the few "tourist attractions" of Phnom Penh… There is one section of the jail where the tortures were executed where the even alive, and the jail workers actually tell their history of why they did it and if they regret or not… The incredible thing of all this that a single one group wants to determine the life and the ideology of others, and it even happens in other parts of the world… it sounds cliche, but I could´t stop to compare it with others realities. There, one was supposed to be re-educated, everyone that spoke, dressed, smelled of middle-class or people with certain education immediately were tortured so that they declared to be antirevolutionary… The same members of the Khmer Rouge in the end were prisoners and tortured themselves for not accepting what was passing, or because the people who were being tortured it was some type of relative (here in Cambodia the extended family any familiar proximity means that…) for that reason it is not estrange to find a lot of people living in a small house… Anyway… my last night in Phnom Penh I met Dave, one of the English of Siem Reap and Anne, a gringo girl who I met in Ankong Watt and that by chance pass by where Dave and I were having supper. At the end I bought tickets of airplane from Phnom Penh to Saigon, the South of Vietnam, and of there to Hanoi, North of Vietnam

Luca!! Adonde te fuistes? el poder nos esta aniquilando

En diciembre de 1994, en mi primera visita a Buenos Aires, Argentina, después de andar rodando en bici por la Patagonia Chilena y Argentina, me hospede en casa de dos amigos profesores de la UBA. Miguel y Norma tienen dos hijos, para esa época adolescentes y para variar amantes del rock. Ambos me mostraron y por primera vez escuche la música de Sumo, banda argentina de rock de los 80s no fácil de etiquetar. Allí por coincidencia también conocí a un nieto de Ernesto Sabato, y lo digo así a pesar que el mismo Sabato diga que "la casualidad no existe". Pues bien, el líder vocalista de Sumo era conocido como Luca Prodan, para algunos un boludo y para otros un dios. Para mi no fue más que una consecuencia de lo que estaba pasando en Inglaterra en la década de los 70s con la Tachert, y después en Argentina con el boom del llamado rock en español y toda su pacatería, o tal vez simplemente era un ser humano con todas sus virtudes y miserias. De cualquier manera, una canción de Sumo me marco para siempre, su nombre Heroína. Por que? Me parecía un tema irreverente que tocaba nuestras adicciones y superficialidades lo que me hizo tratar de conocer al personaje de Luca, su vida y sus ideas trastocadas por un pasado heroinómano y últimamente de pasión por la Ginebra, en pocas palabras era un desecho, para algunos, de esta sociedad de consumo. Años después en mi primer documental fílmico titulado en ingles "A remedy for Melancholy" (Manuela Blanco y Eliezer Arias, 2006), la canción de heroína formo parte del soundtrack del mismo. Debido a que el documental trata sobre el suicidio de jóvenes en zonas rurales de los andes de Venezuela, quienes se envenenan con un pesticida conocido comercialmente como Paraquat (el mismo agente naranja usado en Vietnam por los marines de los United Gates of America), nos pareció interesante hacer una analogía entre la dependencia a la heroína, y sus efectos mortales, y el uso de pesticidas para mantener unos rendimientos económicos que están empobreciendo a los pequeños agricultores, convertidos en los 70s en pequeñas fincas capitalistas y sus habitantes en muertos vivos debido a la alta carga tóxica en el ambiente. Hay también una frase famosa de Luca que siempre ronda por mi cabeza, en especial cuando las supuestas revoluciones terminan creando dueños únicos de las mismas:" Yo viví siete años en Londres y tuve que dejar todo y venirme porque la heroína me estaba matando. La heroína es la mamá eterna, es como el útero que te protege. Con ella no se jode, por algo es la segunda droga en importancia, la primera es el PODER "

Hundertwasser y la Bicicleta Anarquista

Eating Fishes and Bicyclistes es una obra del arquitecto y pintor de origen austriaco Friedensreich Hundertwasser. Esta pintura, como buena parte de su obra, muestra a un mundo en espiral donde las líneas rectas y simétricas no tienen cabida. La idea de esta bitácora de viaje, es la de mostrar, ese otro mundo de curvas y asimetrías que van mas allá de los contrastes binarios de claro y oscuro, izquierda y derecha, malo y bueno, y otros que limitan nuestros pensamientos y prácticas cotidianas. La bicicleta es una excusa para moverme a través de diferentes caminos por los que he andado. Desde pequeño he pensado que la bicicleta ha sido el mayor invento de este mundo. A pequeña edad mi hermano mayor y yo, no teníamos bicicleta, a pesar que nuestra madre nos contaba sus andanzas en ella cuando era adolescente, y como la comparaban con un varón por andar todo el día montada en una bici. En su época era mal visto que una niña anduviera en pantalones y en una bici, para colmo. Es decir, la bici era una cosa de género, así que creo que ha habido algunos avances en lo que respecta a éste tema y su vínculo con la bicicleta. Bueno, el caso es que mi hermano y yo teníamos que pagarle a un vecino, más o menos adinerado, por usar su pequeño triciclo, si la memoria no me engaña era un cuadro 12. La tarifa era por minuto, así que nuestro pequeño aprendiz de capitalista hizo una fortuna con nosotros, quienes siempre estábamos en la primera fila para usar ese invento que nos tenia fascinados. Al año, nuestros padres como que se dieron cuenta que nuestra mesada se estaba invirtiendo en gorras, pelotas, etc., que iban a parar a manos del pequeño manolito de nuestra manzana. Fue así que mi hermano y yo recibimos una bici, cuadro 15 para ufanarnos aún más, en la cual creo recorrimos el equivalente a tres vueltas al globo terráqueo en menos de un mes. También la bici me dejo algunos recuerdos y marcas imborrables, como un primero de enero de la década de los 70s cuando otra vez mi hermano mayor, manejando, y yo, montado en el manubrio de nuestra bici, nos lanzamos por una de esas montaña donde las pendientes parecen indescifrables y donde solo recuerdo salir volando, como en esos saltos al vacío, y luego mi muñeca izquierda partida y en forma de zeta. Aun tengo una cicatriz en mi brazo que la gente confunde con esas vacunas mal hechas que parecen una moneda de las de mayor denominación. Volviendo otra vez al hippie de Hundertwasser, este solía decir en sus delirios que "El hombre se hace paralítico por andar en suelos planos". El hecho que nací en una ciudad más plana que el campo de fútbol del Maracaná, hace que no tenga alguna queja de las tierras aplanadas. Aún así otra vez quiero hacer énfasis en que seguir un solo plano nos debilita y nos hace fácil presa de los pensamientos unidimensionales y simétricos, sean estos planteados por los adoradores del mercado o por algún líder mitómano y salvador de la humanidad. La bici es algo que esta siempre en movimiento, pero no es algo autómata, sino que nosotros decidimos el ritmo y el paso al que anda. Continuara