Our Song to War

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In the Colombian village of Bojayá, in 2002, FARC guerrillas committed a massacre. In this poetic, visually stunning film, the town emerges as a mysterious place where people sing as they guide the spirits across a mystic river. This death ritual, Novenario, is to ensure that the angry spirits of the dead don’t return—a reconciliation between the world of the living and the lost souls that roamed the Colombian landscape during 50 years of war.

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Main credits

Onzaga, Juanita (film director)
Onzaga, Juanita (film producer)
Stevens, Jan (film producer)
Despeer, Sofie (film producer)

Other credits

Cinematography & editing, Juanita Onzaga; music, Las Musas de Pogue.

MARC Record See Worldcat record

Keywords

experimental,children,youth,war,Colombia,spirits,after life,life,rituals,locals,short film,latin american studies,caribbean american studies,island studies,latin american culture,latin american history,latin american politics,caribbean american culture,caribbean american history,caribbean american politics,latin american languages,latin american and caribbean studies,hispanic american studies,hispanic people,hispanic culture,hispanic politics,anthropologically,cultural anthropology,forensic anthropology,anthropologist,human nature,physical anthropology,ethnocentric,ethnography,functionalism,cultures,societies,human people,human society,functionalism,globalization,ideology,pragmatism,dogmatism,social change,society,geography,location,place,country,location,physical place,terrain,spatial awareness,territory,map,place,space,maps,cartography,countries,cities,mountains,territories,states,nations,borders,boundaries,topology,topography,indigenous peoples,indigenous people,indigenous,native,native people,native peoples,aboriginal people,aboriginal,aborigine,indigene,indigeneity,tribes,tribal,tribal people,tribal peoples,south america,south american countries,countries in south america,argentina,bolivia,brazil,chile,colombia,ecuador,guyana,paraguay,peru,suriname,uruguay,venezuela,south american politics,south american culture,south american cuisine,south american education,south america in media,south american languages,south america history,short films,short film,short,non-feature,run time,short run time,running time,short running time,live-action short,documentary short,animated short,live-action short film,documentary short film,animated short film,culture,identity,identity politics,culture wars,left wing,right wing,intersectionality,identity groups,civilization,literacy,humanism,cancel culture,online culture,cultural revolution,cultural diffusion,culture shock,popular culture,pop culture,material culture,cultural capital,cultural assimilation ,religion,spirituality,organized religion,soul,spiritual beliefs,religious beliefs,belief systems,branches of religion,religious sects,sects,gods and goddesses,monotheism,theism,pantheism,polytheism,spiritual awakening,environment,environmental,environmentalism,climate,climate change,global warming,habitat,ecosystem,ecology,eco,earth,planet,water,sustainable,sustainability,deforestation,agriculture,green,green economy,our song to war,Eliseo Pino Chaverra,Camilo Chaverra Cordoba,Roberto Erlin Machado Cordoba; "Our Song to War"; Pragda Films

00:00:59.820 --> 00:01:03.340
How many steps can I walk
into the jungle

00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:05.420
before I disappear?

00:01:16.400 --> 00:01:18.900
Here we say
you have to be more careful

00:01:19.070 --> 00:01:21.720
with the living
than with the dead.

00:01:28.880 --> 00:01:30.660
When did the war start?

00:01:33.880 --> 00:01:35.360
Here nobody knows anymore.

00:01:35.720 --> 00:01:37.680
It has always been like this.

00:01:44.240 --> 00:01:47.680
Have you asked yourself
how it is to live a war?

00:01:55.840 --> 00:01:59.800
Behind our eyes,
remain the traces of our story,

00:02:00.040 --> 00:02:03.920
of a night and day
filled with bullets and fear.

00:02:06.360 --> 00:02:08.960
This place was our home.

00:02:10.340 --> 00:02:13.520
This church, our refuge.

00:02:15.200 --> 00:02:18.280
People call it the massacre of Bojaya.

00:02:18.880 --> 00:02:21.800
Here,
we don't name it anymore.

00:02:25.400 --> 00:02:28.060
These lands, these waters,

00:02:28.660 --> 00:02:31.280
don’t belong to war anymore.

00:02:34.920 --> 00:02:37.120
The waters of this river have told us:

00:02:37.600 --> 00:02:39.880
"only in the darkest nights,

00:02:40.360 --> 00:02:43.960
shall we find the reasons
to keep on fighting."

00:02:44.840 --> 00:02:50.320
Now, we have to take back from war
what has always belonged to us.

00:04:21.100 --> 00:04:24.660
My mom says
I can’t swim in the river at night.

00:04:25.740 --> 00:04:29.340
There are strange creatures
that can seize me forever.

00:04:31.140 --> 00:04:32.980
I asked her,
is it crocodiles?

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She said no,
it is something worse.

00:04:37.200 --> 00:04:39.760
What what can be worse
than a crocodile?

00:04:45.680 --> 00:04:47.440
Maybe a pirate?

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Sometimes I don’t go to school
and stay wandering in the harbor.

00:05:01.200 --> 00:05:04.360
If you look into
the swirling water

00:05:05.240 --> 00:05:08.600
deep inside appear eyes
that look back at you.

00:05:13.700 --> 00:05:15.500
I thought it was mermaids,

00:05:15.740 --> 00:05:17.300
but my granny told me once

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it’s the crocodile-men
living underwater like fish

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but during night time they come up

00:05:25.140 --> 00:05:26.980
and haunt little girls, like me.

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But what if there are lost souls
living inside the crocodile-men?

00:05:51.420 --> 00:05:53.560
What if they’re also inside the fish?

00:06:08.460 --> 00:06:10.100
Oh you killed it!

00:06:11.380 --> 00:06:13.600
You should have seen, he shot the stone

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and hit the lizard on the neck,
it did like this.

00:06:17.660 --> 00:06:21.060
I said "I have good aim"
and I threw it, bam!

00:06:21.500 --> 00:06:22.460
Are we gonna go fishing?

00:06:22.630 --> 00:06:24.630
But we're missing Walter!

00:06:24.940 --> 00:06:27.040
Let's go search for him

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I have to get my fish hook.

00:06:52.540 --> 00:06:54.140
Do you think there are fruits in here?

00:06:54.380 --> 00:06:56.680
There are the graves from the massacre.

00:06:57.480 --> 00:06:58.760
There are like 45, no?

00:06:58.930 --> 00:07:03.640
Did I tell you? The son of... Solito.

00:07:06.900 --> 00:07:09.480
He came here and saw a broken grave

00:07:09.680 --> 00:07:11.740
and took out a skull.

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That was Chuchito. Yeah with Cuchilin.

00:07:17.080 --> 00:07:19.640
They took it out,
it´s still there somewhere.

00:07:19.980 --> 00:07:23.960
It was that grave over there,
it´s all destroyed.

00:07:27.220 --> 00:07:28.800
I didn´t touch that skull.

00:07:29.380 --> 00:07:31.040
They were playing with it.

00:07:31.560 --> 00:07:34.440
Once by night
the owner of the skull appeared.

00:07:34.940 --> 00:07:38.840
I was sleeping,
I woke up and went to the toilet

00:07:39.100 --> 00:07:40.840
And something touched me like this,

00:07:41.180 --> 00:07:42.640
but there was nobody.

00:07:42.900 --> 00:07:45.720
So I went to my brother's bed
and slept with him.

00:07:46.640 --> 00:07:48.840
Another night
we were sleeping with my bro,

00:07:49.080 --> 00:07:51.880
and something pulled my bro up
like this, upwards,

00:07:52.280 --> 00:07:54.620
and I had to pull him back down!

00:07:55.160 --> 00:07:58.080
My brother flew up and then down,
it was so scary.

00:07:58.980 --> 00:08:00.440
I don´t know which being that was.

00:08:01.620 --> 00:08:04.880
All those nights
we didn´t have light at home.

00:08:16.420 --> 00:08:20.140
“Why did you have to go?”
that's how people cry here.

00:08:20.320 --> 00:08:21.880
I cry, but I don´t like crying.

00:08:22.060 --> 00:08:23.820
When I go to the Novenario ritual

00:08:24.440 --> 00:08:26.440
Where they are celebrating
the death of someone.

00:08:26.840 --> 00:08:28.260
Celebrating?

00:08:28.640 --> 00:08:30.160
You know what I mean.

00:08:30.330 --> 00:08:35.870
When they start singing I think,
why can't I sing like them?

00:08:36.460 --> 00:08:38.760
So I can also sing to my dead family,

00:08:39.500 --> 00:08:41.200
it makes me sad.

00:08:49.160 --> 00:08:57.780
“Ay! Why did you have to go,
I have loved you so much

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After we have cried for you,

00:09:05.640 --> 00:09:11.300
in this world
there shouldn't be dead anymore.

00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:18.020
You that we need,
please get up from your grave.”

00:09:27.340 --> 00:09:30.240
I don't know which
are the graves of my family.

00:09:33.580 --> 00:09:37.080
There is my family, just in front.

00:09:40.460 --> 00:09:42.720
Well, I don't know
where my dead are.

00:10:38.460 --> 00:10:42.000
One day a man died.

00:10:43.100 --> 00:10:46.800
The people of the village
did the Novenario ritual

00:10:47.680 --> 00:10:51.240
and the cantaoras started singing.

00:10:51.500 --> 00:10:57.260
His grandson looked down
and saw that the water started rising.

00:10:58.260 --> 00:11:03.800
So he asked his grandma,
"Granny, why does the water rise?"

00:11:05.080 --> 00:11:08.440
She answered
“Son, when we start singing,

00:11:08.620 --> 00:11:13.680
the spirit arrives here,
he drinks the water because he is tired,

00:11:14.120 --> 00:11:18.080
and then he floats over the river

00:11:18.360 --> 00:11:20.080
towards the afterlife."

00:11:40.480 --> 00:11:48.200
It makes me be scared
and enfolds my heart

00:11:51.740 --> 00:11:56.200
seeing myself dead and lying

00:11:57.060 --> 00:12:02.120
in the center of my house.

00:12:03.520 --> 00:12:11.960
I know tomorrow I will go
from this world into the next one.