Sein Zare and The God Particle
A film by
Amado Villafaña and Pablo Mora Calderón
From the heart of the world, the Arhuaco indigenous group refuse to die and they embark on a long journey to dialogue with those who threaten their territory and also with those who have found profound coincidences in their worldview or Seyn Zare.
The narrative
On a sacred stone, three wise men from the Arhuaco culture dance barefoot to the rhythm of a melody that they themselves sing. They pay tribute with their dance to Serankwa, the father of Earth. Amado Villafaña, the Arhuaco leader who hosts the documentary, takes the last photo of the ritual and turns towards the camera. He is there because that stone, which represents the secret codes of nature, will give him the key to begin a mission, so far unsuccessful. This mission is to make the world understand that the threads that spiritually connect the sacred sites of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta are in danger. He sets out on a journey from the coast to the peaks of Gonawindúa, whose glacier area is now dramatically diminished. In the company of Teyrungumu Torres, an Arhuaco physicist, they visit different places in Europe and the United States where they stablish a dialogue with climate change experts, physicists studying the elementary particles of the Universe, mining businessmen and world leaders. The aim is to investigate and controvert the Western reasons for the physical and spiritual devastation of the planet.
The documentary will take place as a travel diary of its host Amado Villafaña, who in the different stages of his journey will be accompanied by other characters such as the physicist Teyrungumu Torres, Mamo (spiritual leader) Camilo Izquierdo, Mamo Kuncha Nawingumu Izquierdo, Leonor Zalabata who is the Colombian Ambassador to the UN, the young activist Ati Viviam Villafaña and other wise men and women from the peoples of the Sierra. These journeys will reveal the tension between two worlds: the one of the ancestral and intimate territory of the indigenous peoples and the outside world, which can be either the landscape intervened by ‘progress’, any cityscape in Colombia or the European offices, industries and laboratories. The Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta seems remote and isolated to contemporary modern society, and indeed it is. Geographically speaking, it is remote if one takes into account that the middle and upper parts are dominated by pristine jungles, steep mountains and bumpy trails that make it inaccessible. However, the remoteness that made early colonization difficult is relative. The two worlds are connected. This is how our more traditional thinking conceives it. The Earth is one and living things depend on it: rocks, trees, water, animals, the Moon, the Milky Way or human beings. Whatever is done to it anywhere affects the whole Universe.
Every place, every element of nature, every activity we do in the material world has repercussions in the invisible world because everything exists in ánugwe or spirit. Understanding this thought and its complex expression in the indigenous culture and territory of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta is the purpose of this documentary. Although these two worlds have been considered opposites and we have denounced the destructive power that has affected us, the narrative aim is to reveal not only the differences but also the similarities. Those affinities and correspondences between the most advanced thinking of Western science and technology, and that of the wise men and women of the territory. To do so, we have chosen a narrative structure that has four parts: an introduction and a three-act dramatic narration.
The perspective
As the Yosokwi Collective, we feel the responsibility of once again wielding the cameras. But this time we will not only transmit our ancestral thinking, but we will seek to talk with the world, with those external agents that have an influence on our territory. We want to approach not only the reasons that have destroyed us, but also to establish a conversation with the conceptions of western scientific thought that are synchronized with our way of seeing reality.
From a profound dialogue of knowledge, we seek to build our own cinematographic narrative that keeps an eye on our territory and on the deep understanding of our Law of Origin. It also approaches the Western world by looking and listening curiously and cinematographically to its landscapes, sounds, practices, logics and knowledge. It is a challenge for us that from these dialogues of knowledge with quantum physics or techniques such as animation, we will find the way to represent audio-visually the invisible spiritual universe that sustains everything. We will test our experience of audiovisual production, in order to make our worldview intelligible. It is our most ardent wish that you understand how we conceive the life of this Universe. And so it is to try to understand what theoretical, quantum and high-energy physics say about the balance, disorder and frustration of the elementary and complex materials that make up the Universe. We must bring about mutual understanding and respect and, in a spirit of conciliation, equal recognition of different thoughts. We will use all our creative capacity to ensure that the documentary will foster a dialogue between two seemingly irreconcilable worlds.
