'Runa Kuti, urban natives'

Translation of the Argentinean subtitles of the documentary 'Runa Kuti, urban natives'.

Synopsis
Thousands of Argentinians descending from originating cultures live in Buenos Aires, city which historically has forgotten the pre-existence and existence of these peoples. Four people in this situation narrate how it is to grow in a family and social environment that denies them their roots and culture; they also tell of their personal struggles to rediscover themselves and strengthen bonds through cultural activities. In this search, the four ways come together through a world vision of the originating people; putting out an invitation to reflect on consciousness and the relationship of humanity with nature.

You can see the complete documentary in

http://vimeo.com/37754616

http://runakuti.blogspot.com/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Runa-Kuti-ind%C3%ADgenas-urbanos/267868453226635

Team
Directing and editing: Paola Castaño Londoño and Dailos Batista Suárez
Production: Angela Guerrero and Jacqueline Balfour
Assistant to Production and Sound: Daniela Peña
Dirección de Fotografía: Antonela Vita
Music: Sandra Barrientos Callamulo

Participation in Film Festivals
Official selection FECICO 2011 (Buenos Aires)
http://fecico2011.blogspot.com/
Official selection VI Festival transterritorial de Cine Underground (Buenos Aires)
http://cineunder.wordpress.com/
Official selection 1r Festival Nacional de Cine Indigena en Patagonia (Neuquen)
http://cineindigena.com.ar/
Official selection Underpy Fest, V Festival de Cine Under de Paraguay (Asunción)
http://cineunderparaguay.blogspot.com/
Official selection BAIn, 1ra Muestra de Cine Buenos Aires Indígena
http://bain2011.blogspot.com/
Participation in the Creative Commons Film Festival of Buenos Aires
http://www.ccbue.com.ar/
Official selection in the 3ra Muestra Internacional de Cine Documental DOCSTOWN (México)
http://docstown.blogspot.com.ar/

Technical Details
Genre: Documentary
Original Format: PAL 16:9
Duration: 39 minutos
Country of Production: Argentina
Date of Production: May - July 2011

Runa Kuti is registered under a Creative Commons license because we believe that culture should be free to be shared. Because we all do it and the copyright law is not yet capable of adapting to the new cultural practices.

You are free to:
Share - copy, distribute, execute and distribute this work publicly
Under the following conditions:

Attribution-- You must attribute Runa Kuti to Paola Castaño and Dailos Batista.
Non- commercial— This work cannot be used for commercial purposes.
No Derivative works -- It can't be altered, transformed or derive any new work from this.

Runa Kuti, urban indigenous

I consider myself from the native people Colla

Descendant of Mbya Guaraní nation

I am daughter of Quechuas

[singing] Pachamama mother earth

[singing] don't eat me...

From a Mapuche root

[singing] Look that i'm still young, and i have to leave seed

[singing] hearts, don't forget me, don't forget me

[singing] Pachamama, mother earth, don't eat me yet

My name is Sandra Barrientos Callamullo

my father, my mother, they are from Potosí, south of Bolivia

precisely from a place called Chaquí

i belong to the Quechua-Aymara culture

i'm the oldest sister of 3, we are 3 sisters

we were born here in Argentina

we are te first generation born here in Argentina

My parents came as many people who emigrates to the big cities

looking for that "progress" they were educated with

in the place they came from

Both my sisters and I lived the first period of our childhood in Villas (poor villages)

nothing, this is unbelievable...

And these things that parents do in order to protect us

that was part part of our history that did not tell us, that we lived there for a while

among other things they have done to protect us, such as...

not transmit the language

not teach us to speak Qechua

that's what my parents and my grandparents always spoke

I understand them now

that at that time they...

they tough that if they don't teach us the language, the accent was not going to stick to us

and the people were not going to treat us badly

but it was an appearance matter

the insults, the bad ways... it was really clear

not need for them to hear you talk

they look at you, and already they treat you bad

This one is from Potosí, this is my grandmother's house

already in Potosi city

not in the countrie side

this is my grandfather, this one my grandmother

You know how she was up and down with that 'aguayo'?

she would come and go just like that

Look at Ren, when he was little

here my sister, me, Diego

As a result of being in Bolivia and the north, meeting with people,

and the people's behave that... don't have no comparison

it was a different look and different treatment from the people here

so you relate with the people in other ways

and you find yourself in another way

and you say... wow! i never lived this!

or maybe i did with mom, dad, the uncles and no one else

but not in the streets, in the daily life

that was different

in that moment something happend, i start to realize

what i lived when i was child

and how you grow up approving situations that are not good

you go naturalizing and normalizing violent living codes

so this reinforced also the fact of...

of assuming the identity from another point of view

start to... love yourself a little bit more

that's the way

and at the same time go healing wounds as well

This is the planisphere with the real proportions

At that time it was like starting to... little by little... to see the way

is like the first stage of the process of...

i don't know how to say it...

identification, self-identification...

[car pass by]

but there was that stage

and then the other things comes

it's like the strenghtening stage

firts it's to know... start to know

and then from being doing the activities feel part of it

What will cost them to get out and speak with us?

I'm Valentin Palma Callamullo, from La Matanza

i'm a Quechua descendent

Buenos Aires is seen as the Paris of the south, the Paris from Latin America

a place without history, where spanish people came to do nothing

a couple of persons that resisted and that's it

and they was... according to the official story they was exterminated

growing up here, it's a little bit difficult

the society maybe in some cases

a bit discriminatory, maybe a bit xenophobic

and they make you feel different

and when you are a child, a teenager, you are more vulnerable

and you try to hide it, to hide some things because

they point at you or they say

"bolita", "paraguayan", "chilote" stuff like that

or "shitty black"

If I speak with my grandparents in Quechua

or I say to them that I want to learn

they would laugh, they tought I was jocking with them

maybe it is naturalized that you don´t have to

some things, maybe for the oldest

there is no need

maybe them already have that, they are peasants not indigenous

they don't recognized themselves

the interesting for me is, that in my family they can start to feel proud

of being indigenous descendent, of being indigenous

as in society is also difficult sometimes, a slow process

in the family as well

maybe to be crossed by the catholicism

because after all, we are all crossed

by five centuries of a western subjectivity, individualism

that prevailed here, or that tries to prevail

so, we all have contradictions

but the good thing is to identify them and slowly begin to recover the other thing

the most important thing

(police's sirens)

I came here to do my job

they warn me, there is a call from

to defend our rights to do an indigenous ceremony here

where there are remains of our ancestors

like there are remains below that private neighborhood that were buried under that private neighborhood

we do not make any complaint to them

because we know what is the law in this country

that is a kind of law that protects the private property

not the rights of the people who lived here before these laws came

before the ones you work with

let's get into legal issues, do you want to come with me?

come on, here is a public road that reaches the other side

where the people walk

(radio) "because now in the fields and the mountains of America"

(radio) "in the slopes of the hills"

(radio) "in the plains and jungles"

(radio) "between loneliness or city traffic"

(radio) "on the shores of the great oceans and rivers"

(radio) "the world is beginning to shake"

Ha'e peme'e, che réra Dario, che Mbyá Guaraní

Hello everyone, my name is Darío and I'm a Mbyá Guarani's descendant

(radio) "500 years ago fooled"

(radio) "by some and by others"

(radio) "the history will have to count with the America's poor people"

(radio) "with the exploited and spurned of Latin America"

(radio) "that has decided to start writing themselves, forever, their own history"

I was born in Buenos Aires but I didn't lived my childhood there

when I was 3 months old, I was already traveling to Misiones

I always say as a joke, at 3 months old I was a political exile

my entire childhoos was in the mount

so, there is a conexion with the mount, with the energy that the jungle has

I grew up with that

and then, always connected to the rock

all my teenage years were very connected with this kind of music

with friends who always were in rock and metal scene

when I was 20 years old, because family issues, I came by myself to live in Buenos Aires

it was a quite strong change, because the city where I used to lived

called "El Dorado"

was a very humble neighborhood, really small

in comparasion of living in a big metropolis such as Buenos Aires

it was shocking

after a while, living in Buenos Aires

I started to research about native peoples

but it was just a matter of interest

I wanted to know what they thought, I even spoke in past tense

what they believed, what they had in mind

and when I was finding out a little more

I realize that there were some things of native peoples

that were not wrote in the books

and even the people would tell you about native peoples and there were missing things

so, because I always traveled to Misiones

at least, two or three times a year I do

because a spiritual need, I could say

I need to intern myself a while in the mount

I found out that what I have to do is go and get into an indigenous community

so, I took my bag and went

I got into the community, I introduce myself

I was welcome

a community called Yeyé, wich in spanish means Palmitos

obviously my head made a terrible turn because

I found that there was lots more about this matter

- and because is you -

I think I was more interested in activism, see more about this peoples

I wanted to get involved more in this subject

and I start to take part, to connect with the people that was

in the most political part, if you want to say it

or more specific claims as the land issue, the security issue

health issues, this a bit more... serious

I think we should also have a spiritual independence

become independent of the spiritual terrorism that the catholic system has being doing along all this years

what they are doing, I would called it spiritual terrorism

And at the time, my mother asked me, what I was doing with the indigenous matters

Because I knew she had her bad... her experience from what the 76's dictatorship was

I didn't want to tell her a lot, not to scare

and I told her: look, most of them, are cultural activities

we talk about indigenous customs

And she said to me: I asked you, because the parents of your grandmother were indigenous

And I say to her: are you telling me that part of my blood is indigenous?

and she said: yes, your grandmother and her parents were indigenous, from Guaranies

So... i was someone searching something that already had

seems crazy to tell it this way, but I was looking for little pieces, putting together something that was already made

I'm Argentinian, born here in Argentina, but my mother and father are Bolivian.

I'm Pedro, Pedro, just Pedro, another one in this world

Something happend to me that unfortunately happens to everybody in the life,

my mother gone, died.

Being walking and remembering I had a very deep and personal question:

How do I continued the relationship between my mother and I after that?

Amazingly in the middle of the hills I was walking around and kicking stones

I think I gave myself the best answer to my own question

why not do what she always did?

Why not to continue with the things she did... in the way she walked?

and then I remembered that she had never left, since I have memory,

to make her ceremony to Mother Earth.

So instead of closing my door because I was a little more alone,

I opened my door and there began to come kids from the neighborhood

I started to try to be useful to the community with a small place to give food to the poors in the weekend

and I was thinking how I would continue the way of my mother about their culture

and their traditions and their cosmovision...

And in that time i told to the kids that were coming there:

look, is about 1 August and I wanted to do a ceremony for Mother Earth

and logical kids when they are young, they have no prejudice

They said, what is it?. I tell them we will make a meal,

we will share with each otjer and we will make an offering to Mother Earth

and the kids said: yeah, yeah let's do, let's do

and this was the begging of my cultural roots rescue's story

This library began more or less in the early 90's.

At first it was on that corner, a pile of books and magazines with papers

and a group of guys with who we started doing crafts,

I wasn't a craftsman either, I didn't know, but trying to entertain them

and give them something they could use and that they could be helpful with,

I started to learn, and that makes us appreciate all that surrounds us

and that's what today I would say from the small library

that yes, in part I humbly think, I'm succeeding, to convey that,

to show the world view of indigenous peoples.

Teach this, show this

to the kids, starts to encourage them to realize and respect the culture of the fathers and mothers,

but sometimes older people comes too

and talking about this, perhaps is a way I might...

or I tell them how myself now, older, I start to realize this,

and they begin to think back, to remember their parents, their grandparents

and they start to recover their identity.

One day, at the University of

I studied at the University of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo

and one day a colleague told me about this and the following Saturday we came

That was almost a year ago, in March 2010

and then I came and well ... and I could not go

I began to be here a couple of days until I left everything there and I came to live here

The oldest do not understand yet.

is contradictory because they keep traditions of indigenous culture,

even though this pierced by Catholicism, retain several things that

perhaps unknowingly ... and being the closest to that

and like that, maybe they do not understand sometimes

the younger, cousins or uncles they do realize

because the place is very strong,

I mean, not only the nature or being facing to something so disgusting like these

is mostly connected with the history of the place,

and without being esoteric mysticism or anything, it feels,

There is an energy in the place

We try to take only what is on the surface

what is kind of burried we don´t take it out

but the reality is that after the water comes and takes it all.

When this gets lower you can walk around

Here I am seeing a lot more of pieces

There are plenty. See beneath the landfill

Yes, some people calls me Pablo, the indian

About ten years now that I am participate in an alternative media, Indymedia

working with news of native people.

What we are asking is that this part of the lands that were sold

make a reversal of entrepreneurship of the private neighborhood

to remain as a public space which claims to indigenous peoples,

to protect archaeological remains that are in this place,

remaining open place to use as it has been used for decades

This will mean to make the first claim to the indigenous peoples of Buenos Aires

rigjt outside of the Capital.

We are trying to make is that, by retrieving this place, it begins to speak,

serve as a trigger to think Buenos Aires in other ways

to raise awareness throug all the population living in Buenos Aires

that the history of this place is not what we have been taught since childhood.

Where is Pablich? ... Pablich ...

New shirt, new shoes, hairstyle, tie, trousers, they have everything

They arrived when the machines began to build that

and after, the peole came

the people who speaks english and live inside

They are yankees priest from Arizona.

I think is a paradox how the come

500 years ago they came with the cross and the sword from Spain

and today, the come with the bulldozers and the cross from United States

in versions of those places

Is the same history, like a spanish poet said

"Some people read ten centuries of history and closes the book because it is always the same"

but the good thing is that in this story there is always another story, which is not told,

the voice of the vanquished, supposedly

that slowly is beginning to be heard

and to be visible

[singing] The days are passing, the nights are going

[singing] The days are passing, the nights are going

[singing] my youth fading like flowers of the field

[singing] Oh, I am so sad, I feel like crying

[singing] remembering those moments that we were very happy

[singing] Oh, I am so sad, I feel like crying

[singing] remembering those moments that we were very happy

[singing] they say, say, say that you want me

[singing] they say, say, say that you love me

[singing] If you want me, why you don´t kiss me?

[singing] If you want me, why you don´t hug me?

[singing] they say, say, say that you want me

[singing] they say, say, say that you love me

[singing] If you want me, why you don´t kiss me?

[singing] If you want me, why you don´t hug me?

I listened to folk music

and after that I started to listen and play Sikus

traditional music (from the Andes)

and in this moment I realized

the function, the funcionality of the music

the reason of the music

of the origin of the music in the different cultures

[Sing in Quechua] Lloqo lloqo qollunxa

[Sing in Quechua] waki wawa llupt'añan

[Sing in Quechua] Lloqo lloqo qollunxa

[Sing in Quechua] waki wawa llupt'añan

[Sing in Quechua] ukataki atipxayasipxasma

[Sing in Quechua] ukataki atipxayasipxasma

This is the important thing, the interrelation between people

the interrelation between the differents voices of the instrument

and singing in group

this is... what also

when you start to do it, to share it, to experience it

you feel it

one thing is to play alone

triying to cover one song

and another different thing it's to play all togheter

I listen to Heavy Metal since I have 12 years

is a music that accompanied me throughout adolescence

throughout this period of rebellion...

¿how do you say?

of craziness

always accompanied with the Heavy Metal

and when i was a boy I said: when I grow up I'm going to have a band

[music] I miss the rock, in the blood

[music] I miss the rock, in the blood

[music] I miss the rock, in the blood

When I started with the indigenous militancy

i continue with my...

listen to the same music

then something appears in my life way

I'm going to be a militant indigenous that renounced to his musical preferences

or I'm going to be a heavy metal that renounced to his roots

I had this dilemma

then i said: no, why I can't do not both?

and I proposed the idea

I want to make a band like this, going to have a lot from indigenous peoples

going to be a lot of words from the indigenous peoples

lot of message from the indigenous people

and well ... Charlie looked at me as he is saying to say: What!?

¡¿What you want to do?!

and I proposed the name

[singing] Good night

[singing] this is

[singing] XON-DA-RO

Xondaros was, or still are, the protectors of the communities

they are communities physical and spiritual protectors

[singing] They can not defeat me

Obviously we did not invent anything

There are many bands that take indigenous issues in his lyrics

maybe the change we do is:

the present and the future of the indigenous message

My thing is heavy metal

is what I like to do

everyone, every person

in his own place

have to do his own fight

some with music, another with writing, another through journalism

in the schools

everyone has to let out the fight that we have inside

from that place

So we can say that from there we go shooting

is our strength

- She, the weaver

- wakes up when is still night

- like if she's listening the sound of the day

- then, picks up a clear strand and passes it

- between this threads

- Quickly the first line of light on the horizon is draw

In Punta Querandí began to spread the rumor that it was

an indigenous cemetery that was to be destroyed by a private neighborhood

from that point, seeing that the authorities that had to protect this place

didn't do it

Starts an organization called

Movimiento en Defensa de la Pacha

composed by indigenous, environmentalists, journalists, neighbors...

a confluence of very important parts

I was learning in this way

that everything around me

everything with which I fed

everything with which I heal

even with the clothes I usually wear

was coming from the earth

when we have the concept is easy to understand

that we are children of the Pacha (Pachamama)

and we are all brothers

For me what unites

the cultures in the wolrd

is the feeling of love for the earth

the respect to the space where we are

Ancestral peoples are now returning

to their territory

they not die, they are, they are still here

they are pushing us

Our Grandparents have been watching the movements of the universe

they have seen cycles of five centuries

now it's begining a movement ...

in a global level

that is making that the knowledge of the ancient cultures are gaining more space

Pacha Kuti happens every 500 years

Pacha means cosmos, universe, mother earth

Kuti means to return, go back, change ...

I am very happy with what is happening in South America

I like that my generation, and people a little older than me,

we are preparing this way

very hard times are coming, very nasty times

but also some very strong times at some level...

at a earth level we can say

at Abya Yala level, the new world

It's like we are looking inside for this equilibrium

also for the outside does not?

Indigenous people always speak of cyclic life

always cyclic life

begins and ends, begins and ends

Circular life

And we go back to that point again

going through the best of times, apparent

and returning to that situation

in which we will recover our natural living

between man and nature

and equilibrium in all concepts

dynamic, electrodynamic, cultural, life ...

We know we are planting a seed here

I'm positive that there is no turning back

will be another balance of power

You see that there are more and more people

working for equilibrium

It's a phenomenon, there is a revaluation

and I bet to this revaluation

we can create a more conscious society

we can

We began to start giving more value

to a corn than to a gold ring

overturning that value, that economic system

of value, money and gold

Big part of that essence is still inside of many people

it's inside the persons

is just to assume the responsability

return to a relationship with nature

And that love for the earth, to the universe

is the love to yourself, and to everything

We are all in that way

there is some people, that still fail to realize

but someday, with consciousness, as they said the grandparents

or by pain

they will begin to realize

¡¡JALLALLA JALLALLA TATA INTI!!
(Hurrah Hurrah for the Grandfather Sun)

¡¡JALLALLA!!
(Hurrah)

¡¡JALLALLA JALLALLA TATA INTI!!
(Hurrah Hurrah for the Grandfather Sun)

¡¡JALLALLA!!
(Hurrah)

¡¡JALLALLA JALLALLA TATA INTI!!
(Hurrah Hurrah for the Grandfather Sun)

¡¡JALLALLA JALLALLA TATA INTI!!
(Hurrah Hurrah for the Grandfather Sun)

[singing] Five centuries resisting

[singing] five centuries of courage

[singing] maintaining always the essence

[singing] Five centuries resisting

[singing] five centuries of courage

[singing] maintaining always the essence

[singing] Is your essence and it's seed

[singing] and it's inside of us forever

[singing] Is your essence and it's seed

[singing] and it's inside of us forever

[singing] It becomes life with the Sun

[singing] and flowers in the Pachamama

[singing] It becomes life with the Sun

[singing] and flowers in the Pachamama

[singing] At the edge of a path

[singing] my brothers live

[singing] At the edge of a path

[singing] my brothers live

[singing] They ask God, persecuted

[singing] you can call them Qom

[singing] They ask God, persecuted

[singing] you can call them Qom

[singing] Primavera! persecuted

[singing] you can call them Qom

[singing] Primavera! persecuted

[singing] you can call them Qom