Bizzaro world exists in colombia!

ColombiaBoard says on Apr 10, 2006, 20:21:

Well... This shows you that discrimination is alive and well in Colombia. You don't seem to have heard that in many parts of Colombia, the word "indio" is used as an insult.

Indigenous people are discriminated all over, speciall in larger cities.

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Rubiazo says on Apr 10, 2006, 20:33:

How about the students? Did they screw up often? Were they late? Did they waste money?

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adrimm says on Apr 10, 2006, 20:34:

Wow, you've really gone and said something ColombiaBoard Wow, you've really gone and said something CB. I'm not sure that this is what bufalo was trying to say, but your response has definitely changed the potential dynamics of the thread.

(BTW I do agree with you on discrimitation of indigenous people in Colombia, but add that there seems to increasing levels of respect of indigenous cultures, or at least a bit more than 20 yrs ago. At least one of the city councillors (or possibly board of education person) in Bogota is an indigenous person, which is more than I can say for the local government in my region).

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webmanco says on Apr 10, 2006, 20:44:

‘Se nota que es un indio’‘

I rather being an indio, as well.


Leave me alone with my masato, chicha, Sanjuanero, Joropo, cumbia, salsa, vallenato, guarapo, vegetables, trees, clothes without mark-ups, and with my Colombian Passport.




POR ANDRÉS HURTADO GARC�A
RESPUESTA EN TONO QUIMBAYA

No apostaría un centavo por el futuro de un pueblo que no reconoce su pasado’, decía Paul Valéry.

Este era el título del email que me envió una dama hace un tiempo, a propósito de un artículo en el que hablaba de la poca delicadeza que tienen los Estados Unidos con el resto del mundo y con nosotros en particular. La dama, por supuesto, quería insultarme. Su nombre, desde luego, no viene al caso.


Como es sabido, los columnistas recibimos muchos insultos y sabemos que algunos han decidido, muy sabiamente por cierto, cerrar el acceso al foro de los lectores para comentar su columna. Es cuestión de simple higiene mental.


Contesto todos los emails y a los que me insultan les contesto con elegancia. Sin embargo, con esta dama fui ejecutivo, si este término explica lo que quiero significar.


Así le contesté: "Reciba un saludo muy atento. Claro que soy indio, y por eso soy grande, porque asumo mis raíces. Y por eso nuestro país nunca saldrá de la postración porque hay colombianos que sienten vergüenza de su origen y porque carecen de dignidad nacional y se venden al extranjero". Paul Valéry decía: "No apostaría un centavo por el futuro de un pueblo que no reconoce su pasado".


Para muchos colombianos, todo lo mejor se encuentra en el extranjero. Y así, pueblos con recia personalidad nos han colonizado. Rancheras, tangos, norteñas, rock, van sepultando poco a poco la música colombiana. Y es solo un ejemplo.










COLOMBIA

...A yo, déjenme queto y no me jodan má! ...

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adrimm says on Apr 10, 2006, 20:47:

So I'll go ahead and ask the question


Were the comments that the non-indigenous students made about the indigenous people discriminatory?

Are the similar comments that some people here make about Colombians discriminatory?

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Rubiazo says on Apr 11, 2006, 09:07:

Sounds like sweeping generalizations to me I say if somebody fucks up, they fuck up, whether they live in a palace or a hut has nothing to do with it. If somebody is late or unprofessional, they are just that. If the Colombianitos are just as unprofessional as the indiocitos AND are bitching about it they are guilty of hypocrisy and possibly racism.

I may be wrong but I gather from the original tone of the first post that none of this really mattered to the OP, as if the bar wasn't supposed to have been set that high for the indios. That in and of itself smacks of racism IMO.

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bufalo says on Apr 12, 2006, 12:25:

rubiazo!! The students screwed up big-time too, but not as bad as the director.

- Never told me that one of the locations only had electricity 5 hours a day (I might need to know this so I could recharge my batteries, or even bring them for that matter).
- Never called the people at said location to let them know we were coming, they weren't ready so a whole day was wasted.
- never had a meeting to inform myself nor anyone else as to what it was we were shooting, the director knew, but again, he was a screwup and they knew it.

Originally, the bar was set equally for all. The director screwed up majorly. It was because of who he is, personally: had me shoot 2 hours of dancers while a band played in the backround. In editing he informed me that the focus (and one of the groups paying for the project) was the band, the dancers had nothing to do with the project. I had about 5 minutes of the band.
- He was constanly taking "mambe", toasted coca leaves. Some tell me there is an effect, some not.
- He also got extremely drunk.
- One minute says "What a fantastic sequence". Five minutes, same sequence later "This says nothing", Five more minutes, but the same sequence later "This is fantastic, when did you do this?"
I called him an idiot, he told me it wasn't his fault, he was indigenous. I then told him being indigenous had nothing to do with being an idiot.


What I mean by all this, and I don't see it as being rascist. Genreralizing yes, because to me, that is what a culture is - generalizations of a group of people - is that the students felt about the inigenous as gringos and colombian expats tend to feel about colombians. I heard the same bitches made by the students towards the indigenous as I hear by expats and gringos towards colombians.

For example. For me, late is late. We are supposed to meet at 7 AM. I show up "on time", 7 AM. The students showed up at 8-8:30AM. To me it is late, but to them it wasn't. Just a bit, no big deal to them, that is normal. The indigenous would show up 4-5 hours late (once 9hrs). The students were all over them, but the indigenous felt that it wasn't a big deal, just a bit late. It's a relative thing I'm talking about.

True, I wrote that the director lived in a hut. I don't see this as an excuse, but a reason for him not understanding a lot. The fault lies with the production (students who picked the first person they found so as not to work on it any more), they knew the guy was a screw up.
What I also mean to say, yes it is generalizing, but not rascist, I don't feel it is anything genetic, but a cultural thing, is that maybe the indigenous weren't the ones to be making the film. OK, that sounds bad so I'll explain.

How many films have they made? how many films have they been exposed to? these are people who live in huts, who don't have much contact with the outside world. Their only contact is usually through scientists who come to visit. No alarm clocks, stuff like that. you can't say to them "I'll meet you at 4:00, because they aren't specdific. there are a lot of things that can change in their world. there could be a massive rainstorm (common in the amazon) so no transportation, they have no landline phones,. Recently they have cell phones, but they don't work where they live, so when do they use them? Since they aren't used to phones they don't understand that when you answer a phone, you should talk, say "hi", something. I call them, they push the button and keep talking to who is sitting next to them. this results in me, or anyone else, waiting 5 minutes for them to get around to talking on the phone. They are only beginning to understand that you have to recharge the phone battery. Stuff like this is what I mean. Culturally speaking, they aren´t of.... "this world" so to say.

If the target audience of the film is their own people, then they should shoot it, but if the target audience isn't then they should be consultants, or production and let someone else shoot it. This would be because the audience might have a problem understanding what they are trying to say. Also because we had a budget and a time frame, two things they have absolutely no sense of (the students should have, but didn't). I worked, only in editing 100+ hours in 5 days, mostly due to stupidity on the part of the director and some of production. I got paid 320,000 COP, two weeks after I was supposed to get paid. That's 3,200 an hour, wow.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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Blue says on Apr 12, 2006, 13:59:

Not to be flippant but maybe you should try another line of work. Unless this is a labor of love, sounds much like trying to put a square peg in a round hole.

Blue

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Crazy4Cali says on Apr 12, 2006, 15:18:

WRT filmmaking that sounds like any number of "first film" experiences, I've heard (and experienced).

If you let someone who doesn't know how to drive get behind the wheel, a crash is inevitable. Letting a client call the shots when they don't know what they want or how to go about getting it is a good time to negotiate an "hourly" contract instead of a "Fixed price."

I hate to say it, but Bufalo's experiences are not unique, even in the U.S.A. Often people feel that if they are paying you, they can do whatever they want: show up late, change the terms, etc. And, if you let them, they can. If you don't, they'll change or find someone else to drag around behind them.

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Rubiazo says on Apr 12, 2006, 16:30:

I kinda see his point though Showing up an hour or more late for a film shoot is just not cool. It's an extremely inefficient way to do things, because time is so precious in that industry.

Who'se decision was it to have somebody with no experience direct it, let alone someone who doesnt own a watch? I definitely would have wanted an hourly rate after hearing that! Bufalo are you the chief editor or what is your title on the project?

Student filmmakers here in the US are notorious for screwing up in exactly the same ways but I guess I woulda had something to say about it if they were constantly blaming the natives as if NONE of what went on were their fault.

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Crazy4Cali says on Apr 12, 2006, 16:54:

producing docs... Producing docs is something I have a little familiarity with; as such, I can sympathize with his experience. It sounds like Bufalo was the victim of some pretty incompetent producers. Unfortunately, this is not an uncommon experience in the low-budget documentary field because there are lots of people with big ideas but few of them know how to pull them off. That he managed to come up with something resembling a finished film is a feat he can take considerable pride in because most such projects never make it past the "big pile of raw camera tapes" stage.

After working with one or two such producers, I figured out that it was in my best interest to "help" them keep to the schedule and keep things moving along if I wanted to: a) stay on the project and b) stay reasonably sane.

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Rubiazo says on Apr 12, 2006, 17:12:

If they need a score or music supervision, get in touch with me. But I don't work for 3200 pesos an hour hahahahah :P

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bufalo says on Apr 12, 2006, 20:39:

yeah, I really did it to help out. More labour of love than for money (good thing too). I originally tried for an hourly wage, but there was no way it was going to happen. Since they had almost no budget, they wouldn't have been able to pay me, so if I left the project I would have been "that stingy gringo who only cares about money and abandoned us". I didn't wan to be a dick so I did everyone else's job.
What really made it for me was seeing some of the tribes in their environment. I saw a lot of stuff most tourists don't see (or it is staged for them).
It was shown in Puerto Nariño a town of 2000 on the Amazon. I had one of the local elderly indigenous ladies sing over the credits, ending with her face on the screen kind of saying goodbye. Every time I tested it with someone, they loved it. It was showtime, the film ended and here come the credits, what happens??? One of the A-hole producers from a different project grabs a microphone and basically says "thank you good night, see you all tommorrow". the result was noone heard the singing, saw credits, turned around to leave and when her face was there noone saw it. I told the guy off good. At least the crowd sang along with the film at one point.
Many thanks to Crazy4Cali and the guys and gals at the other site we tend to hang on for major technical help. C4C if you want a copy I'll mail it when I get to the states in May.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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bufalo says on Apr 12, 2006, 20:42:

Forgot to mention also why I stayed and churned this puppy out. the student producers told the University heads in Bogotá that I was an international filmmaker and professional editor. I told the students up front that I had a camera, some experience and a laptop to edit on - that's it. They blew everything out of proportion, so if I didn't pull through it would have looked as if I were lying. And since they didn't pull through, I had to for them.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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Crazy4Cali says on Apr 12, 2006, 22:02:

Copy? Cool! I'd be honored.

Contact me through the other site or, if you still have my e-mail floating around, drop me a note and I'll send you my snail-mail.

Like I said, having a finished doc "in the can" puts you in the vast minority of filmmakers.

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goosekirk says on Apr 13, 2006, 18:01:

Cool I'd be really interested in seeing this... are you in Bogota?

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bufalo says on Apr 13, 2006, 18:06:

Will do C4C:
goosegirk (cracks me up) No, I'm still in Leticia, I might be able to send you one. Just trying to figure out how. got an address Or are you ever going to be in Armenia?

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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goosekirk says on Apr 13, 2006, 19:48:

bufalo could you send me an email at chris at kirk dot net? Couple things I want to ask...

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bufalo says on Apr 15, 2006, 16:15:

It really isn't anything major, but sure if he wants too.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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