Truly Indie Distribution

Check it out: http://www.trulyindie.com/index.html

ITA Flight Tickets

ITA Ticket Search

Seems like leaving from Chicago is significantly cheaper than Detroit... (link)

The pilgrimage of the Virgen del Quinche is on November 21. More Info.

Software Licensing & Trademark Agreements

apparently Apple wants you to add their logo to the credits if you edit with Final Cut Pro. See this.

FresHDV: FCP Editing Tips

Top 10 Final Cut Pro Tips and Tricks for Editors

Be still, My Beating Heart

Hello all,

Phase 1 of Post Production is now complete: all footage (about 600 gigs!) has been captured. That's more than two full days worth of film on our little hard drive.

Phase 2 is to log the footage using our logsheets (thanks to Kyle for transcribing the first batch!).

Phase 3: translation.

And just to whet your appetite, here are some stills from the film (click on the image to view larger):

fire breathing Yachac (healer) in Otavalo.

On location in Juncal, an Afro community near the Columbian border.

Shot outside a storefront in Quito.

Juncal, facing away from the rainbow.

Peguche(?)

The baptismal water healer in Juncal.

Luce Otavalo, a woman shaman demonstrates her practice.

Technique: Locating Sequence Audio Levels that are Too Loud

http://www.larryjordan.biz/nxltrs/nxltr_28.html#levels

Boosting Audio Levels:

http://www.larryjordan.biz/nxltrs/nxltr_28.html#boost

Film Communique

Hello all,

Some of you may have been wondering what that greasy haired clutch of miscreants with the camera has been up to. Following a strict stormchasing regime through Ecuador, we’ve been working tirelessly to collect footage from Quito, Loja, Peguche, Otavalo, Juncal, San Martin, and Illuman.


The film, more than anything, is a rigorous collection of qualitative data on the health and healing options in and around Quito. Although by no means a comprehensive ethnography, the focus is on the personal narrative of navigating, hybridizing, and understanding the quest for keeping oneself healthy in Ecuador.

We’ve filmed in local markets, clinics, Afro-Ecuadorian barrios, indigenous villages, retirement communities, streets, homes, and dancehalls.

Last week, we traveled to Peguche, Ilumàn (a town known for its many healers), Juncal (known for its many football players) and Otavalo, a few hours northwest of Quito. These pueblos are home to fire-breathing Shamans, who conduct ritual cleansing through herbs, burning embers, pure sugarcane alcohol, and yes, flame. Huddled in a dark cinder block room, we witnessed a strange and mysterious ceremony that only a handful of gringos have ever had the opportunity to encounter.


The other night, we attended a religious festival to San Pedro in the Church plaza in Peguche. Here, indigenous people mixed with mestizos, as they kicked around soccer balls soaked in gasoline and lit on fire while a gigantic homemade castle exploded in tiers of fireworks and torches. Meanwhile, vaca loca or "crazy cow" - men with wooden structures configured with fruits and fireworks - charged at crowds (and at the camera).

In the days previous, we visited Jambi Huasi, a unique clinic in Otavalo. Jambi Huasi (House of Healing) serves the underrepresented indigenous community, charging less and providing patients with the option of western and/or traditional (Shaman) medicine. There, we witnessed a curandero (healer) rubbing and slapping someone with a live guinea pig as a diagnostic process. She then killed the poor creature, skinned it, and turned it inside out to reveal the black organs which represented the patient’s ailments and absorption of negative energy. We also filmed a healer perform spiritual healing with a mixture of potions, stones, and smoke, while next door, a dentist cleaned teeth and a pharmacist wrote prescriptions for biomedical drugs.

With given permission, we worked with one Limberg Valencia, an Afro-Ecuadorian marimba musician, social activist, anthropologist, and cultural revivalist. Mr. Valencia has introduced us to the unique and overlooked world of African medical traditions, which are unlike any other contemporaneous practices. Here, the "Afro" community relies on a fascinating blend of spiritual healing, communal health dances, and music to revive and empower African culture.



Orfa Renosa is another contact we made through the Afro-Ecuadorian community. She works for an expansive national NGO, specializing in alternative medicine, traditional curing, health education and community organizing.



With her, we filmed a streetside ¨check-in¨ between an Afro-Ecuadorian nun and the poverty-stricken families on the periphery of Quito proper. There, we met and interviewed a number of “curbside” healers.

We have also been interviewing and following around Jaime Guevara. He is a very popular political folk singer who, unbeknownst to the majority of his fans, suffers from severe epilepsy. We filmed a conversation between him and indigenous friend about health and Quito, the ¨schizophrenic¨ city. We also had the opportunity to film and attend one of his concerts, commemorating the death of an Ecuadorian leftist killed by state terrorism.

There´s a lot more to be said; our session with Limberg and his dancers, our experience in the clinic in San Martin, our exploration of religious healing practices, our run-in with the brujas (witches). It´s all on film, and we can´t wait to share it with you once we have the chance.

We have more than 50 hours of footage to work with, and possible another year until we edit everything together, Keep in touch with us at: quitofilm@umich.edu.

Best,

Yoni
The Quito Film Collective