PandP Jun2016: UAKA (Paula Gaitan) Curator: José Sarmiento and Mónica Delgado

This film was selected by José Sarmiento and Mónica Delgado for the Politics and Poetry initiative of the European Foundation Joris Ivens. The foundation holds the paper archives of the Dutch worldwide known filmmaker Joris Ivens. The Politics and Poetry initiative stopped in 2017. Each month a guest curator presented a piece of (film)art , made by a new or relatively unknown filmmaker, with both poetic and political qualities. Joris Ivens was a political filmmaker and a poetic filmmaker altogether.. "What all my films have in common is that people are moved by something. Moved by their desire for freedom, moved by water, moved by the wind. I don't think there is any difference between Ivens filming the wind or Ivens filming revolutions," said Ivens himself in 1976. In light of this thought, we created this space for (film)artists working in the field of “Politics and Poetry”. More PandP films (and interview with the curators of this film) and information about Joris Ivens on our website www.ivens.nl More information about the film: UAKA Brazil 1988 90 min CREDITS Directed by: Paula Gaitan Screenwriter: Paula Gaitan Cámera: Jonhy Howard Editing: Paula Gaitán and Aida Marquez Sound Design: Carlos Alberto Camuirano and Paula Gaitán Cast: Takuman, Ianaculá , Sapaim Sobre Uaka/SKY/San Francisco film festival In the midst of the Brazilian jungle, near the mountains separating the Amazon River from Bolivia lies the Xingu, a region unknown to outsiders as recently as twenty years ago. The Xingu creation myth is the subject of this first feature by Paula Gaitan, who shows how well she has learned the lessons of cinema nôvo. Neither documentary nor fiction-and still less an ethnographic film-it's best described as an "image poem" about the quarup ritual. Sky depicts a culture thousands of years old still living according to its own legends: the hero Mavutsinim was the first to learn how to revive the dead, by chanting songs before wooden trunks (quarups) decorated and painted with images of the dead. Resurrection could only take place if this magical practice remained secret. But men betrayed their promise and tried to discover Mavutsinim's secret. From that day forth the dead have been unable to return to life. Today those whose dead are honored must remain in mourning for an entire year, not participating in any tribal activity. Then they are led to the center of the village for a symbolic purifying bath where their bodies are made up to mark the end of mourning. The next day the quarup trunks are thrown into the river which transports the dead to a new existence in another world. Amiens Film Festival • Directed and Written by Paula Gaitan. Photographed by Johnny Haward. With Takuman, Ianacula, Sapaim, Xingu Indians. (1988, 78 mins, In Kamauira with English subtitles, Color, 16mm)