Post by UniverseSeven on Sept 5, 2005 11:04:47 GMT -5
order it here, view trailer here
www.dwdtv.org/home.html
The Real Thing: Coca, Democracy and Rebellion in Bolivia
In 2002, filmmaker Jim Sanders, video camera in hand, headed to South America in search of a story of inspiration. After working his way through Venezuela, and the Amazon he arrived at the Third World Social Forum in Porte Alegre, Brasil.
While waiting for Noam Chomsky to speak in front of 20, 000 participants, he was captivated by the speech of Leonilda Zurita, leader of the Bartolina Sisa Bolivian Federation of women peasant farmers.
She was pleading for the world to take notice of the undeclared war that was being waged against her people.
She was speaking at the World Social Forum after enduring 13 days of struggle in which 9 of her companions had been killed by Bolivian security forces.
Soon after Jim traveled to Bolivia and the film was born.
Costing only $35,000 to make, The Real Thing is a guerrilla-styled documentary that explores the US directed "War on Drugs" and the impact it has had on the people of Bolivia, specifically on the indigenous coca farmers of el Chapare.
The coca leaf is indigenous to Bolivia and a sacred leaf revered and used by the majority of Bolivians. It is also the source ingredient for cocaine and the target of billions of dollars worth of militarized coca eradication, alternative development and narcotic interdiction efforts.
Fifteen years since George Bush Sr. declared a war on drugs in his inaugural presidential address, cocaine is still a thriving business and the impact of American drug policy on the people of Bolivia has brought the country to the brink of a total social upheaval.
The drug war might be old news but its legacy has produced one of the most significant social movements to emerge in the last five hundred years. The indigenous coca farmers of el Chapare, building on a 500 year tradition of resistance to imperial powers, have resisted the eradication of the coca leaf, and the attack on their way of life by organizing themselves into a political party, the Movement Towards Socialism, the MAS, which in the 2002 elections won 27 deputies and 8 senators. The leader of the MAS, Evo Morales, almost won the presidency.
The Real Thing is more than a documentary about coca, cocaine and Bolivia it is also a case study in the role US foreign policy has in repressing people's movements and in fomenting dissent and resistance around the world. In a globalized modern age in which many Americans are wondering why so many people around the world "hate them so much," The Real Thing provides critical insight by shedding light on a tragic situation in which people, who want no more than to live their life as they always have, are targeted and criminalized as drug traffickers, and now as terrorists.
The Real Thing is a film that peels away the layers of rhetoric used to justify the "War on Drugs" and now the "War on Terrorism" revealing a war between two world's, one global and modern, the other local and indigenous.
GNN: snippet
gnn.tv/videos/viewer.php?id=38&n=1
www.dwdtv.org/home.html
The Real Thing: Coca, Democracy and Rebellion in Bolivia
In 2002, filmmaker Jim Sanders, video camera in hand, headed to South America in search of a story of inspiration. After working his way through Venezuela, and the Amazon he arrived at the Third World Social Forum in Porte Alegre, Brasil.
While waiting for Noam Chomsky to speak in front of 20, 000 participants, he was captivated by the speech of Leonilda Zurita, leader of the Bartolina Sisa Bolivian Federation of women peasant farmers.
She was pleading for the world to take notice of the undeclared war that was being waged against her people.
She was speaking at the World Social Forum after enduring 13 days of struggle in which 9 of her companions had been killed by Bolivian security forces.
Soon after Jim traveled to Bolivia and the film was born.
Costing only $35,000 to make, The Real Thing is a guerrilla-styled documentary that explores the US directed "War on Drugs" and the impact it has had on the people of Bolivia, specifically on the indigenous coca farmers of el Chapare.
The coca leaf is indigenous to Bolivia and a sacred leaf revered and used by the majority of Bolivians. It is also the source ingredient for cocaine and the target of billions of dollars worth of militarized coca eradication, alternative development and narcotic interdiction efforts.
Fifteen years since George Bush Sr. declared a war on drugs in his inaugural presidential address, cocaine is still a thriving business and the impact of American drug policy on the people of Bolivia has brought the country to the brink of a total social upheaval.
The drug war might be old news but its legacy has produced one of the most significant social movements to emerge in the last five hundred years. The indigenous coca farmers of el Chapare, building on a 500 year tradition of resistance to imperial powers, have resisted the eradication of the coca leaf, and the attack on their way of life by organizing themselves into a political party, the Movement Towards Socialism, the MAS, which in the 2002 elections won 27 deputies and 8 senators. The leader of the MAS, Evo Morales, almost won the presidency.
The Real Thing is more than a documentary about coca, cocaine and Bolivia it is also a case study in the role US foreign policy has in repressing people's movements and in fomenting dissent and resistance around the world. In a globalized modern age in which many Americans are wondering why so many people around the world "hate them so much," The Real Thing provides critical insight by shedding light on a tragic situation in which people, who want no more than to live their life as they always have, are targeted and criminalized as drug traffickers, and now as terrorists.
The Real Thing is a film that peels away the layers of rhetoric used to justify the "War on Drugs" and now the "War on Terrorism" revealing a war between two world's, one global and modern, the other local and indigenous.
GNN: snippet
gnn.tv/videos/viewer.php?id=38&n=1