Argentina: Documentary on Indigenous People in Buenos Aires

This post is part of our special coverage Indigenous Rights.

The documentary Runa Kuti, Urban Natives shows us the stories of four descendants of indigenous communities living in the city of Buenos Aires, and how they struggle with reclaiming their identity, rediscovering their culture and making a place for themselves in the city.

http://vimeo.com/32219379

The film focuses on several descendants of indigenous groups who all live in Buenos Aires. Through their stories they share how they were raised sheltered from their own roots as their parents decided to shelter them from the exclusion and discrimination by not teaching them their indigenous language or customs, others grew up in ignorance of their ancestors origins, and how they have decided to embrace their tradition and culture as a way to empower themselves and take pride in their heritage.

Runa Kuti, Urban Natives, produced and directed by Paola Castaño and Dailos Batista Suárez, has been shown in several film festivals around the region, and in a push to get the message out to the greatest quantity of people, they have released it under a Creative Commons License. They explain on their 12 March, 2012, blogpost [es]:

Hoy estamos de celebración, después de meses de guardarlo en la nevera mientras nos presentábamos a festivales hoy por fin podemos anunciar que ya está liberado completo el documental ‘Runa Kuti, indígenas urbanos’ para que cualquiera pueda verlo y compartirlo, para que su historia y su mensaje lleguen a la mayor cantidad de personas posible.

Lo hemos subido a Vimeo en una versión de baja calidad, y le hemos activado la posibilidad de descarga, así que si querés podes verlo online o descargarlo. Nuestra mayor satisfacción es que este trabajo ayude a mostrar la realidad indígena de Buenos Aires al mundo, así que si lo podés compartir por cualquier red social o email a tus contactos nos harás un gran favor.

Today we are celebrating, after months of keeping it in the refrigerator while we presented it to festivals we can finally announce today that the documentary ‘Runa Kuti, urban natives’ has been completely liberated so that everyone is able to watch it and share it, so that its story and message get to the greatest quantity of people possible.

We've uploaded it to Vimeo in a low quality version, and we have activated the download option, so you can watch it online or download it if you like. Our greatest satisfaction is taht this work will help to show the indigenous reality in Buenos Aires to the world, so if you can share it through any social network or email to your contacts you'd be doing us a great favor.

The trailer for the documentary has already been subtitled into English and they are hoping that people will help and pitch in to create the subtitles for the full-length documentary:

http://vimeo.com/37754616

This post is part of our special coverage Indigenous Rights.

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