Encounters of Other Cinema starts today in Quito, with proposals for environmental documentaries such as ‘While there is jungle’ by Colectivo Neblina

This Friday, September 6, the twenty-second edition of the EDOC documentary film festival, Encounters of Other Cinema, organized by the Cinememoria Corporation; The billboard will remain up until Sunday, October 15.

The official headquarters is OchoyMedio, Incine Universitario and the Alfredo Pareja Diezcanseco Room of the House of Ecuadorian Culture, with special performances at the Capitol Theater (Gran Colombia and Julio Castro), Cinemark del Paseo San Francisco, the Humboldt Association (Vancouver E5-54 and Poland) and the Metropolitan Cultural Center (García Moreno and Pasaje mirror).

Furthermore, producer and filmmaker Lisandra Rivera states, From October 23, a selection of 10 films will be shown in Guayaquil, in the MZ14 building of the University of the Arts (October 9 and Panama).

EDOC 2023’s offering is varied, from very intimate family films to single-character films, others dealing with music and pieces on environmental themes. “Of course there is a trend that we are very happy with: a large number of young and committed filmmakers to talk about what is important to them, and that has enormous value for us.”

Filmmakers from other scientific fields have entered the world of documentary and cinematography. “It is very free, every profile can make a documentary, the author calls on people to make a film on the subject that concerns them.”

In fact, this year The Young Jury and the Film Student Jury are present at the festival for the first time, people between 18 and 25 years old who choose the best film from a group of titles. “I think it’s super positive and it will have an impact on young people.”

Rivera shares with us a small selection of EDOC projects that you should not miss this year, although he encourages you to visit freely.

Goodbye Savages (2023), Sergio Guataquira Sarmiento

It is the first feature documentary of the Colombian, who went to the jungle of his country in search of his roots and eventually found a series of suicides among the indigenous male population, theoretically due to heartbreak. It was photographed in black and white. The director will be present at the meeting and will speak to the public afterwards.

Nothing about my father (2023), by Susanna Lira

Brazilian Susanna Lira presents a film shot in Ecuador, a country where she arrived in search of her father, whom she never met. Searching for clues, he comes across a few possibilities. It is a tribute to the memory of both the author and of Ecuador four decades ago. Lira will also be present at the meeting and speak to those present.

motherland (2023), Alexander Mihalkovich, Hanna Badziaka

A young man enlists in the military and while a mother demands justice for her deceased son; Belarusian activists protest against state violence or dedovshchina, the practice of turning children into soldiers.

between revolutions (2003), Vlad Petri

The author has reconstructed the friendship and correspondence of two women who met in that country in the 1970s by examining the archives of the Romanian secret police, comparing the Islamic Revolution of 1979 with the Romanian Revolution of 1989.

Talking about trees (2019), Suhaib Gasmelbari

Four Sudanese friends who left their country in the 1960s and 1970s to study film abroad founded the Sudanese Film Group in 1989. After years of estrangement and exile, they hope to realize their long-cherished dream: bringing cinema back to Sudan.

We students! (2022), Rafiki Fariala

Four economics students at Bangui University survive crowded classrooms, informal work and corruption: this is student life in the Central African Republic.

Mangrove law woman (2023), Pocho Álvarez

Women shell collectors and fishermen on Ecuador’s Pacific coasts are resisting the dispossession and displacement caused by the shrimp industry.

Marietta (2023), Paula Parrini, Diego Arteaga

The directors present the result of their collection of testimonies from 150 women who walk through the streets of the La Mariscal district in Quito to show how they experience public space. It already premiered in Ecuador, but returns to contribute to the EDOC.

As long as the jungle remains, the story of the park rangers of Esmeraldas

Naia Andrade Hoeneisen, from the Neblina collective, is a biology student who, together with two colleagues (Emilia Palomeque and Karla Barragán) at the EDOC, Documentary of 23 minutes As long as there is junglethe story of Amado and Yadira, who work in conservation in the Chocó region corresponding to Esmeraldas.

Amado was a lumberjack and now he is a park ranger. Yadira started with many limitations because she was a woman, but she found her way. “They have so much to teach those of us who want to do conservation, but we live in the city and we don’t understand the social reality of those areas.”

The researchers chose documentary film because they are trying to escape the technical language bring science to audiovisual language, to show people what is happening on the planet and in Ecuador. It was a six-day shoot plus two years of post-production, a completely self-financed project. “None of us made a cent until a few months ago when we decided to raise a cent crowdfunding”.

They worked together with the Jocotoco and Tesoro Escondido foundation. “There is an assumption that those who work in the mines or in logging are people with bad intentions,” Andrade says. “That is often not the case. “These are people who need work, and that is what is available.”

While There Remains a Jungle premiered at the ECOador International Environmental Film Festival. At the end of this month it can be seen at the Quito International Film Festival of the University of the Americas. In the EDOC it will be on Sunday, October 8 at 6 p.m. in Incine and on Thursday, October 12 in the CCE. “And then we don’t know, we hope to find other ways to share it.” Would you take on such a project again? “Yes, what we are looking for with Neblina is connecting biology with other disciplines.”