Director’s Statement

The history of Yarokamena has been told in many versions for a long time, but it can cross through layers of time that come from before the invasion of the Amazonian territory and remain in a deep time of techno-colonization, war, and exploitation.

In addition to being a story of resistance and rebellion, Yarokamena is a way of understanding the continuous threats of territorial domination in the Amazon and is a warning of the consequences of the presence of foreigners who create chaos. The original account suggests that Yarocamena’s name means “lightning stone tree” or “quartz tree.” The yaroka, or quartz-stone, was worn by captains in the form of a necklace and was used to launch lightning bolts at enemies. It was also used to predict the fate of a battle: some yaroka stones were thrown on platanillo leaves; if they collided, it was predicted that the war would fail. With this stone, coated with achiote, the body was painted red to go to combat.1¹sidenote schließenRoberto Pineda Camacho, “Historia oral de una maloca sitiada en el Amazonas: Aspectos de la rebelión de Yarocamena contra la Casa Arana, en 1917,” Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura, 1987.

The story of Yarokamena scarcely circulates in the official histories of Colombia and appears as a derelict oral archive. Through approximations of performance and theatrical practices in situ, the film proposes to activate the narrator-reader who embodies a descendant of Yarokamena. This event was of such great intensity that it was one of the great antecedents of the border war between Colombia and Peru at the beginning of the 20th century and is part of the global conflict over the rubber. For this, I think it deserves much more recognition because it transforms the usual narrative in which indigenous cultures are usually positioned, as lacking the capacity to form an autonomous strategy to resist the advances of exploiting and colonizing companies. The way Gerardo tells the story is full of cinematic vibrations. The exercise of orality and listening was a key dimension to making the film. The camera operated not just as an eye but as an ear.

La Vulcanizadora has brought together other stories of resistance, rebellion, and solidarity. YAROKAMENA joins this path where the cinematographic enters into an alliance with forms of oral cultures, with Amazonian culture, and embraces unusual and surprising ways of imagining, turning it into an expanded experience.

Visually, we framed the film in a circle that resonates with the format of antennas, showing a layer of invasion of telecommunications in La Chorrera. In addition, it reminds me of looking through a spyglass, a telescope, or a technological apparatus. My intention and our motivation have arisen from continuous work with colleagues from the community of La Chorrera Amazonas. We recognize that cinema is a common territory in which we can meet and from which to talk to and visualize each other.