Helena de Sarayaku, a film by the filmmaker Eriberto Gualinga, aims to consolidate and spread the concept of the living jungle

Like cotton wool, the mist moves slowly over the almost virgin forest of Sarayaku, and the river, illuminated with the first rays of the sun, with delicate balance -as if asking permission- makes its way carrying with it the rich and abundant fauna that translates into well-being, food, life, what they, the inhabitants from that fertile land they call living jungle or kawsak sacha, in kichwa.

The young native of Sarayaku, filmmaker and director Eriberto Gualinga, from the air, shows the magic of his land in Helena de Sarayaku, a 70 minute film, subtitled in Spanish, French, English and German.

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The song and the voice in off from his mom, Corina Montalvo, 87, arises in the middle of the concert of jungle sounds: “In ancient times, the squirrel was also people, all were people, the monkey machín and all other beings. The jungle is alive, the water is alive, everything is alive, the land is alive. We all have our own way of life and they theirs. Just as we arrive and enter our house, they do the same … If they fall in love with you, they catch you and can take you into the river, which is their home. People live there ”. Thus, with these phrases and the old song, which evokes good energy, the concept of the Living Jungle, the main message of the film, begins to be configured.

-What is the living jungle?

-To us, since we were children they teach us that the jungle is alive, says Eriberto, that the trees are alive, that rivers, waterfalls and lagoons have owners, that we should not make noise during the hunt, that we should not make fun of the animals, that we should not hit the trees without a reason, because they are the houses of the beings that live there. We have always respected the jungle.

Lancers and Hunters in Sarayaku

Now Sarayaku leaders, to defend the Amazon, propose that the jungle is alive and that it be considered as a subject of rights like man himself, that we are part of it, that we are not owners. There exists from the microscopic animal to a large animal, which also includes trees, everything. Now, they have put it on paper and are fighting for it to be recognized as a right, says Eriberto.

We have large areas, large reserves, we go hunting when there are parties or on vacations and the rest of the time the jungle spends regenerating. Those places are alive, they are areas of regeneration, areas that maintain the balance of ourselves and the planet. On vacation we will feel more vigorous, to fill us with the energy of the jungle, to forget about cell phones, computers for about fifteen or twenty days, then we return to the community to continue fighting, explains Eriberto.

The living jungle is where the protective beings are, that at first glance we do not see them, but they are there. The shamans told us that there are the beings that maintain balance and protect the jungle As the Lots, owner and protector of animals; the Yaku Runa, protector of rivers; the Pasu Supay, protector of the mountains; the Kuchu Supay, protector of the lagoons; the Yashingu, being that warns where to hunt. We have heard the roots of large trees hit and we have felt the earth shake, thus informing us that the animals are there to hunt. There are many signs that we do not see, but we hear, there are screams, whistles … that is the living jungle, says Eriberto.

That’s what we stand for, what we want the world to understandThat there are people protecting, peoples fighting and other beings who have rights like us, he says.

The initial script of the film was intended to spread the concept of the living jungle to the world, through a youthful voice like Helena, but three episodes disarmed that script at once. The mid-March 2020 floods, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown, and a conversation between Helena and a community leader.

The scenes of the floodIn the film, they appear linked to climate change, as a consequence of the oil activity and the felling of trees for the timber industry.

The pandemic allowed to show the fragile medical infrastructure and faith in their ancestral medicine.

The dialogue between the protagonist and a community leader where he says: “you have to speak everything I said, but in English, there, outside the country,” he motivated the team to travel to New York to film Helena in the youth march of the Climate Summit.

The modification of the script lengthened the duration of the film, but the message was enhanced, even scenes from the film were incorporated. traditional festival Uyantza Raymi which, for wildlife conservation purposes, is held every three years.

I started filming at the end of 2019, says Eriberto, everything was going well until the floods caught us, the filming was put aside, because we were full of mud, with the roads destroyed and, immediately, the pandemic arrived, there the movie stayed.

In the days before the flood, we had already started to edit with Pocho Álvarez, then we were cut off for six months, without internet, he was in Quito and I was in Sarayaku, reveals the filmmaker.

At the end of 2020, Eriberto Gualinga and César Antonio Álvarez, known as Pocho Álvarez resumed editing and in February 2021 the film was ready Helena de Sarayaku.

The protagonist is the daughter of Anders Siren, a Swedish citizen, Ph.D. in Rural Development, Ph.D. in Biology and Geographer. Currently lives in Sarayaku. Her mother is Noemí Gualinga, an Ecuadorian, a native of the Kichwa indigenous people of Sarayaku, she is part of the group Amazonian Women Defenders of the Jungle, and a therapist by profession, graduated from a prestigious institute in Sweden.

Helena is 18 years old, speaks Kichwa, Spanish, English and Swedish. His primary studies were at the Tayak school in Sarayaku and in the city of Puyo. High school studied in Finland. He is currently on vacation and will soon begin his studies at the university.

Helena is the third of four children, she He keeps his mother’s first surname, in Sweden there is that option.

Before the pandemic, Helena was on vacation and visited Sarayaku, so Eriberto started filming.

The second time Helena returned to Sarayaku she did so for the Uyantza Raymi party, but a few days later the flood occurred. When she was preparing to travel to Finland, the pandemic arrived and she was confined to Puyo. She returned to Sarayaku as a volunteer with the first medicines that the leaders had managed to obtain.

-Why did you choose Helena as the main character?

-We analyze how to take the message of the living jungle to other spacesexplains the filmmaker, we saw that today there are mixed young people like Helena, Nina, the children of Sabina and José, who are from here and from Europe, who speak French, English, Kichwa and Spanish. We found it interesting how Helena works very well in both worlds, she is fluent in Kichwa, English and Spanish, she is not considered strange here and neither in Europe, because she is Swedish.

-How has your technique evolved after your first film in 2002?

-Of my films, this is the most complete on a technical level. We shoot in a native format with audio mixing. The sounds are the result of my mother’s singing and two instruments: the julawatu, which is a transverse flute, and the piguano, which is a bone or bamboo piccolo. This was digitized and voiced. After many years of work I have managed to make a movie with all the steps that I always wanted.

About the director:

Eriberto Gualinga is 44 years old, he is originally from the Kichwa people of Sarayaku.

He has a degree in Cinema from the University of the Arts of Guayaquil. His approach to the cinema occurred in his 20s, in 1997, when he began to tell the story about the defense of the jungle in the presence of the state-backed oil company with the presence of the military in its territory.

His work:

1. In 2002 he made his first film, I am a defender of the jungle.
2. In 2006, The knowledge of the man of the jungle.
3. In 2008, The path of flowers, a life frontier project, where Sarayaku set out to delimit her ancestral territory with flowers, trees and crops. They called it the frontier of life.
4. In 2012, The descendants of the jaguar. This work was awarded by National Geographic. It addresses the trip of a delegation from Sarayaku to San José, Costa Rica to attend the last hearing of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights where it was decided whether Sarayaku suffered a violation of its human rights, due to the incursion of the Compañía General de Combustibles ( CGC), from Argentina, with permission from the State to its territory for oil exploitation purposes, in 1996.
5. In 2012, The canoe of life. He says that Sarayaku proposed to take a 13-meter long canoe to COP21, as a sign of reconquest, a sign of defending the jungle as a contribution to the world, because the jungle is vital for the existence of humanity.
6. In 2020, Return, it was done with the collaboration of the newspaper The Guardian from England.
7. In 2021, Helena de Sarayaku, film that will be released in 2022 and seeks to establish and spread the concept of the living jungle.

The movie, Helena de Sarayaku, which will be released in 2022, received financial support from the German Catholic Organization Misereor, which covered the costs of production, post-production and equipment rental, while Amazon Watch paid for travel, accommodation and filming in New York and Finland. (I)