FilmAid in Colombia
Colombia is home to a population of approximately 47 million people and is the third most populous country in Latin America.
Since the mid 1960s armed conflict has led to the country being home to the highest level of Internally Displaced Persons in the world.
We are expanding our work at the border of Colombia and Venezuela, in La Guajira state with the Wayuu people, the largest Indigenous community in the two countries. Over 1.7 million people have fled Venezuela for Colombia due to the collapse of the Venezuelan economy and disintegration of government services. This has drastically changed the trajectory of La Guajira, which now finds itself on the brink of massive food and water shortages, while experiencing rising levels of violence.
FilmAid is collaborating with our local partner, the La Red de Comunicaciones del Pueblo Wayuu “Pütchimaajana” (The Wayuu People's Communications Network), a group of journalists, filmmakers and media activists from the Indigenous Wayuu community to build their capacity and to share culturally appropriate, life-saving information about COVID-19 in both Wayuunaiki and Spanish with a focus on Venezuelan migrants, returnees (Colombians who had fled to Venezuela to escape violence during Colombia’s civil war) and the local Colombian population.
Over the next year we will be strengthening the capacity of young Wayuu filmmakers to be proficient as both producers and trainers in the production and distribution of broadcast quality video. We will also build the organizational capacity of La Red by providing needed filmmaking equipment that will help the network improve the production value of their work and meet the technical specifications required by broadcasters, thus enabling them to access public television and other broadcast outlets with their visual storytelling content.
Colombia’s internal conflict has been raging for almost half a century. Impunity for crimes of sexual violence has been a defining feature of the Colombian war. Women and girls have been subjected to systematic sexual violence by all the factions of the armed conflict: paramilitaries, the military, and guerrilla combatants.
Paola Mendoza and Gloria La Morte (co-writer-directors of Entre Nos) have made multiple journeys to Colombia to develop the feature film A PASO DE MANGLES ("Steps from the Mangroves") for FilmAid. A Paso de Mangles will tackle issues related to sex and gender based violence in connection to the armed conflict. Through a series of workshops with Colombian survivors of rape and abuse in partnership with La Casa de la Mujer, the script has been informed and inspired by these women's powerful personal testimonies.
A Paso de Mangles is currently in pre-production.