About

The project will produce three fictional feature films of an exciting, artistic and provocative nature which are uplifting, empowering and promote the retention of Garifuna culture, heritage, language and pride.

The films aim to achieve the following:

VALIDATION OF GARIFUNA CULTURE

  1. The films will be in the Garifuna language, offering a work that can be used as a learning tool as well as a positive model to encourage the younger generation to retain the language.
  2. The films will touch on topics relating to Garifuna history, a source of educational enlightenment as well as personal conviction and identification with the Garifuna cultural legacy, which is very unique.
  3. The films will portray Garifuna cultural rituals in a positive light. Each film has a scene with a medicine man or medicine woman (buyei) who serves as a spiritual advisor to the characters. Dreams of ancestors also appear in each film, bridging the gap between this life and the next, a crucial theme in Garifuna culture.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR ARTISTIC EXPRESSION

  1. Actors. The many roles in the films provide opportunities for actors to gain performance experience that may aid them in beginning or accelerating their artistic careers.
  2. Musicians. Musicians and bands contributing to the soundtrack will gain exposure for themselves as well as Garifuna music.
  3. Crew/Filmmakers. Crew gain more experience and hopefully are stimulated to create other films.

COMMUNICATION OF CHALLENGES FACING THE COMMUNITY

  1. Literacy and Education. The films contain plots that have to do with empowering minds and valuing education as a necessity for community progress that must be fought for.
  2. Land rights. The films contain plots that have to do with characters working for land rights and ownership of their land.
  3. HIV/AIDS. The film seeks to educate and inform the audience as well as model behavior change in order to combat the spread of HIV/AIDS.
  4. Women’s changing roles. The films seek to make women’s voices heard and show women in model leadership roles as a method of bolstering the role and acceptability of women playing a major part in all of the above challenges.

A UNIVERSAL MESSAGE

  1. These films provide increased visibility for certain Garifuna cultural and social issues, opening doors for further work and communications by others.
  2. The plots of the films suggest solutions to problems facing the Garifuna, providing modeling and examples as to how attention can be brought to these struggles on an international and personal level.
  3. The issues of indigenous land rights and HIV/AIDS are universal challenges pertaining to everyone in the world. While these films relate to the Garifuna experience directly, the topics addressed can be identified to similar movements in other cultures throughout the world, thus providing a universal message.

By admin August 23, 2009

Comments are closed.