Radio Chanul Pom
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The Arts Committee at Duke Divinity School will screen a documentary by Jose Alfredo Jimenez Perez, followed by a discussion with the filmmaker, Tuesday, November 28, 12:20 – 1:30 p.m. in 0016 Westbrook Building.
“Radio Chanul Pom, From the Heart of the Highlands of Chiapas” is a 19-minute video about how a community of coffee farmers and craftspeople started their own radio station in their native language. The film is in Spanish and the indigenous language Tzotzil with subtitles in English and is produced by Boca de Polen.
Reed Criswell of the Divinity Arts Committee said, “We are happy to bring Mr. Jimenez Perez to the school. This work exemplifies a peaceful engagement of people with a repressive government that we can learn from.”
The documentary has been chosen by the Smithsonian Institution for the 13th Native American Film and Video Festival.
Jimenez Perez learned documentary filmmaking three years ago when he assisted with a project about indigenous farming techniques. In 2005 he took courses on filmmaking in San Cristobal de Las Casas, a city near his village. He wanted to become a filmmaker in order to keep alive his indigenous Mayan culture, to educate young people about their Mayan roots, and to spread his people’s message of nonviolence.
On Dec. 22, 1997 in Chiapas, Mexico a group of indigenous Catholics known as “Las Abejas" (The Bees) were attacked by government-sponsored paramilitaries resulting in the deaths of 45 Abejas men, women and children. Rather than respond with further violence, these pacifist Christians publicly forgave their attackers and have since become vocal practitioners of nonviolence in a land wracked by a decade of low-intensity war.
His current project is a film about a local annual harvest festival celebrating the close connection of the Tzotzil people to the earth and the planting seasons. After this project, he wants to reach more young people in his village through increased use of dramatization and animation. Through stories, he wants to address the issues of gender roles, pacifism and care for the earth.
Jimenez Perez is hosted by Fred Bahnson (MTS 2000), garden manager of the local Anathoth Community Garden, who met him in 2001 while working in his village in Chiapas with Christian Peacemaker Teams. They became friends, and Bahnson has returned to visit twice, bringing along several groups of students from Appalachian State University. Bahnson will be with Jimenez Perez in New York City for the Smithsonian screening, Dec.2.