Spears From All Sides

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Since the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors, Ecuador’s Waorani tribe, have defended their Amazon rainforest with spears. In the 1950’s American missionaries cleared the way for oil companies to enter Waorani lands. Now 70% of Ecuador’s Amazon, home to some 12 tribes, has been divided into oil blocks, polluting one of the most bio diverse rainforests of the planet. Only one small tribe, the Waorani, have successfully fought to keep oil off most of their land.

25 years ago, director Christopher Walker went to the Amazon to tell the Waorani’s story in the documentary film TRINKETS & BEADS (AMPAS Outstanding Documentary, Best Cultural Survival Film, Mountainfilm, Best Documentary Paris Environmental Film Festival) Now, Ecuador has started to auction off the last virgin rainforest to the international oil industry – including the Yasuni National Park, thought to contain more species per acre than anywhere else on earth. At the end of 2014, Walker returned to Ecuador to see if the Waorani could still win their fight against big oil. He filmed over three years, up to the imminent auction of Waorani oil Block 22.

SPEARS FROM ALL SIDES follows the young, charismatic Waorani activist Opi as he tells the dramatic story of a vehement, community based resistance by tribal communities in one of the most remote and beautiful areas of the world. It reveals the duplicity of the Ecuadorean government and the oil companies in their attempts to defeat the Waorani at all costs, including the co-option and subsequent betrayal of the former Waorani leader Moi – the hero of the previous film. Out of disaster, Opi sees a possibility of hope – regaining their autonomy which they lost with the arrival of the missionaries 60 years ago.

SPEARS FROM ALL SIDES, besides being a gripping story following action and events as they unfold, demonstrates the complex battles at the frontlines of climate change which we are rarely able to see on film.

“Powerful, memorable; the story of the Waorani tribe is happening in real time. Spears from All Sides [shows that] environmental justice and social justice are intertwined; a win for the environment is a win for the people who depend on it.” —Malissa Stark-Rodenburg, Afterimage: The Journal of Media Arts and Cultural Criticism

“Highly recommended! Explores the devastainting price the Waorani tribe has paid to stop the devastation of their rainforest and country.” —LaRoi Lawton, City University of New York, in the journal Educational Media Reviews Online (EMRO)

“Spears from All Sides effectively demonstrates the effects of oil exploration, and the challenges that it brings to local communities. In the midst of all the complexity, it also manages to find hope. Visually stimulating, compelling.” —Dr. Marc Becker, author of Indians and Leftists in the Making of Ecuador's Modern Indigenous Movements

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Main credits

Walker, Christopher (filmmaker)
Walker, Christopher (editor of moving image work)
Khachooni, Lara (film producer)
Khachooni, Lara (editor of moving image work)

Other credits

Camera, Gordon Durnin [and 3 others]; editors, David Fox, Lara Khachooni, Christopher Walker; composer, Ian Hill.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

; "Spears from All Sides"; Icarus Films; oil; indigenous; Amazon; rainforest; human rights; Ecuador; Waorani; Trinkets and Beads; ; "Spears From All Sides"; Icarus Films; documentary; doc; env; environment;

WEBVTT

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This is Your Life, a
program for all America,

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brought to you by Ivory Soap.

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Thank you very much.

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Good evening, ladies
and gentlemen.

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I\'d like to present to you

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two very charming and
interesting ladies.

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First, the lady who
has been working

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among the most primitive and
most savage Indian tribes

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in Peru and Ecuador,
Miss Rachel Saint.

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Nice to see you.

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And her traveling
companion and good friend,

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the very first member
of the fierce Auca tribe

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ever to leave the jungles
of Ecuador, Dayuma.

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Hello, Dayuma.

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It was a group of Auca Indians,

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members of Dayuma\'s tribe,
who were responsible

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for the massacre last year
of five young missionaries

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on the banks of the
Curaray River in Ecuador.

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Your fine young brother, Nate,

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was one of them, Miss
Saint, is that right?

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Yes.

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And yet today, Rachel
Saint, you\'re working--

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The fact that they
killed my brother

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only underscored their
need and my belief

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that the Scriptures would
answer their problems.

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They were a fierce tribe
that guarded a vast section

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of Ecuador\'s ,

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the eastern jungle, with spears.

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Well, they looked
wonderful to me,

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and they looked maybe
better than they look today

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with all the things that they\'ve
picked up from outsiders.

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We are going to
sign an agreement

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to manage and protect

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the most important
park that Ecuador has.

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On the one side,
we have to protect

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this important
treasure of nature,

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but on the other
hand, we need to have

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the resources that
are in the Earth,

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now which is mainly oil.

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We are here to help them
protect their own park

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because this belongs to them.

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The land, the surface land,
does belong to the Waorani,

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but in the government
of Ecuador,

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the sub-surface rights belongs
to the government of Ecuador.

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We worked with not
only the missionaries,

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but also the government.

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All I can do is speak for who
we are and what we stand for,

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and we don\'t intend
to break promises.

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You think that was a fair trade?

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That\'s how we got Manhattan,

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with trinkets and beads, right?

00:14:43.500 --> 00:14:44.959
You look great, you
look like a natural.

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Okay, fine for me.

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We\'ve been here.
Gracias.

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They tell their relatives

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more or less the direction
that they are taking.

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Every time they are
walking in the forest

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and they decide to
change the direction,

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they break branches pointing
to where they are going.

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For me, it looks
completely the same

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if that branch is broken or not.

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Yeah, yeah, yeah.

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You are walking in the
forest with all this,

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the quantity of plants,

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and one branch is broken is
the same as the other one.

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This bit is the poison.

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The poison comes from a root,
from a vine called curare.

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They cut tip of the dart,
mostly because dart,

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when it gets into the
animal, the monkeys usually,

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they pull off the dart,
and that it gets broken

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into their .

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The Waoranis were the
last group of indigenous

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in Ecuador approached
by missionaries,

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so their culture
is still intact.

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We are still enjoying
of their history,

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their stories, the way
they live, they hunt,

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they eat, they plant
plants and what they use.

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I think the way to
protect this knowledge

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is being proud of it.

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And how are you
proud of something,

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is when people comes
and appreciate it,

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otherwise, you just
think that everything

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that comes from
outside is the best.

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That is not like that.

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Yasuni National Park, Ecuador,

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a pristine Amazon reserve.

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After a 10-hour debate,
Ecuador\'s Parliament

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approved drilling for oil here.

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President Rafael Correa had
plans for which nations to pay

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to avoid the need
for such exploration

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but failed to
raise enough money.

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The National Assembly
attached conditions

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to minimize the impact
on both the environment

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and local tribes.

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Yasuni, in the
Western Amazon region,

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holds close to a billion
barrels of crude.

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We were here 20 years ago,

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and then you were fighting
to stop the oil companies.

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What\'s happened since then?

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That\'s more or less
the promise, no?

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That they are going to
destroy just 1% of the park,

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the government says, which
I don\'t think is like that.

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The benefit is gonna be
for millions of people, no?

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And that\'s what Moi
is talking about.

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Have you seen other
people receiving

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real benefits from the oil?

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Case 12.979,

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Tagaeri and Taromenane
indigenous peoples,

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involuntary
isolation of Ecuador.

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We have two witnesses
composed by the petitioners.

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And then we have a witness
composed by the state.

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So we will call a witness

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proposed by the
state, Moi Enomenga.

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So we will call
our second witness,

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with Eduardo Pichilingue.

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Thank you.
Gracias.

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