Film Premiere in Shipibo Country

Above: The audience at the film premiere. The final evening of the workshop was the film premiere of the Shipibo’s new, completely participatory, documentary which they decided to title Paromea Ronin Bakebo, which is Shipibo for The Children of the Anaconda. Many people from the community showed up and there was quite a buzz throughout the village about Village Earth and the film. This was very exciting for everybody involved. The film premiere was amazing. As one American observer remarked, “It was like the Shipibo Academy Awards.” After many long speeches, songs, and special recognitions, the film was projected onto a make-shift screen in the community hall for all the people to see. Everyone was very happy with the film and the children were so excited to see themselves on the big screen. Nothing that Village Earth could have done would have has such an impact on the communities as the impact this event had on them. The Shipibo people completely took over the whole production. It was completely indescribable – words do not do this event justice. We left each participant with their own copy of the documentary on DVD (suprisingly all communities have at least one DVD player!) Above: Juan Agustin was the very animated announcer during the film premiere.