About the Project The qom community Potae Napocná Navohog, from the Argentinian province of Formosa, has suffered constant persecutions and murders disguised as “accidents”, with the purpose of evicting them of a land that legally belongs to them. Behind these attacks lies the interest of companies seeking profitability from soy cultivation. They have the support of the Provincial Government of Formosa, leaded by Gildo Insfrán.
The National Government of Argentina pretends not to be aware of the problem.
The qarashé –leader- of the community, Felix Diaz, moved the struggle of his people to the capital, Buenos Aires. They set a protest camp for 5 months, attracting the support of certain sector of the civil society and several Human Rights organisations. This support has been legitimised by the decision of the Justice organism, that recently ruled in favour of the qom. However, the law is still not obeyed, the qom people still has to fight to avoid eviction, and the violence against them keeps rising: the assaults are now more frequent.
Invisibilisation of minorities is one of power’s oldest strategies. Indigenous communities don’t live, but lived, they don’t exist, but existed. Felix Diaz and the community Potae Napocná Navogoh are fighting this invisibilisation, claiming that indigenous peoples still suffer violence, racism and discrimination, and a systematic violation of their rights as pre-existent peoples.
With Kahagak, we want to contribute in spreading a problem common in all Latin American countries by telling the story of a community in particular. To do so, we’ll film both the processes and demonstrations that are taking place in Buenos Aires and the everyday life of the community, where we want to stay for a whole month.
Why do we need your help? Financing an independent documentary is never easy, especially when the events told are politically delicate. Besides, we want to preserve our independence in filming and editing, which complicates even more obtaining funding. With our own resources, we managed to film several events that have taken place in Buenos Aires during the last few months. We also went to the community for a week, so we could get to know it and understand it. The images you’ve seen in the presentation video are made of these shootings.
However, if we want to finish a quality product, true to the facts and independent, we need to go back to the community and for a longer time.
To do so, we need your help. The donations will help us paying for this trip and renting everything we need to film for a month.
The community is in a difficult-to-reach area. It is far from places where we can get supplies, which is the reason we include the rental of a vehicle so we can get around, in and out the community to get provisions. We also need to rent the shooting equipment for a whole month –sound equipment and a lens to shoot at night, particularly- and some consumable goods to shelter in the community.
Our aim is to film a feature documentary of a profesional quality that can be distributed in international festivals, and, above all, seen but as much people as possible.
How can you help us? To the right, you can see a list of donations. You can choose whichever you prefer. All contributions matter, no matter how small! We offer several rewards according to the pack you choose.
The rewards include shipping (in Argentina, Spain and Italy), and we can also deliver them personally if you are in Buenos Aires and Barcelona, where the post-production and the premiere of the documentary will take place once it’s finished (April 2014).
You will also help us a lot if you spread the word among your friends and colleagues.
The financing method we chose is the ‘all counts’ method. This means that we will receive your contribution even if we don’t reach the total sum we aim. We want to collect the money we need to finish the documentary the way we want to make it, that is, giving response to all the questions we considered in our research process.
If we don’t make it, for the sake of our respect and compromise with the cause, and for all the resources and effort we have already invested, we will finish a reduced version of the film. In this case, we will set for a reduced shooting time –as long as we can fund-, and, with this and with the material already filmed, we will finish the documentary.
About us Elena Macián, Pierluigi Secci and Julieta Caruso form the team. We met when we were studying a Master in Creative Documentary in Universitat Autonoma of Barcelona. Our previous background is different, but in a good way. Julieta graduated in Arts, Elena, in Journalism, and Pierluigi, in Contemporary History. So we complement each other. Before we met, we already participated in several audiovisual projects.
We started working together in 2011. Julieta and Pierluigi were part of the production team of ‘Caaru Chün Cariño’ (Barcelona, 2012), a documentary about the wedding ritual in different cultures that was produced by Televisió de Catalunya. Elena codirected the documentary ‘Fora de pàgina (Barcelona, 2012), an experimental film that has participated in several international festivals, winner of the Best Short Movie Award in the Patagonia International Festival of Experimental Documentary (2013) and the Best Editing Award in the International Short Movie Festival of Alcalá de Henares (Madrid, 2012). Julieta and Elena also participated in the collective film about the 1st of May celebrations ‘Totes les llavors sembrades’ (Barcelona, 2012). We three share an interest for social problems and our love for documentary cinema.
Contact
You will find more info about our project in our blog: http://kahagakdocumental.wordpress.com/
Yuo can also follow us in social media:
Facebook: http://fb.com/Kahagakdocumental
Twitter: http://@kahagakdoc
You can also write to us to docqom@gmail.com and ask us whatever you want!
If we don't reach the 100% of the funding goal, we will use it to do the following:
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With the 10%
For us, it is essential to go back to the community. With the 10% of the fundings, we will go there for a week only with our own equipment (camera and zoom sound recorder). Since we can go there with enough groceries to sustain ourselves for a week, we won't need to exit it. This way, we can go by bus instead of renting a car.
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With the 25%
We will still reduce the shooting time to a week. We can still go there by bus instead of renting the car, but we will be able to rent the sound equipment an the lens so we can film our images with a great quality.
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With the 50%
We will reduce the shooting time to two weeks. This way, we will cut in haf the expenses of the car rental and the equipment rental.
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With the 75%
We will reduce the shooting time to three weeks. This way, we will be able to reduce a 25% all our rental expenses.