Read:

“Speaking Nearby” A Conversation with Trinh T Minh-ha by Nancy N. Chen

Trinh T Minh-ha unravels the role of the documentary or ethnographic filmmaker. She asks us what role we maintain in telling a story, especially when we are not from the place and/or community in which it takes place. She suggests the use of indirect language or “speaking nearby” which “does not objectify, does not point to an object as if it is distant from the speaking subject or absent from the speaking place. A speaking that reflects on itself and can come very close to a subject without, however, seizing or claiming it. A speaking in brief, whose closures are only moments of transition opening up to other possible moments of transition — these are forms of indirectness well understood by anyone in tune with poetic language.” (87)

Sense-Making From the Ground Up: The Films of Beatriz Santiago Muñoz by Gazelle Mba

Watch:

La cabeza mató a todos (Dir. Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, 2014, 8min) (please contact studio.beatrizsantiagomunoz@gmail.com for the screener password)

Synopsis: Instructions to destroy the military-industrial apparatus with a spell. The form of this spell is precise. With Mapenzi Chibale Nonó. (from the filmmaker)

Black Beach/Horse/Camp/The Dead/Forces (Dir. Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, 2016, 8min)

Synopsis:

Black Beach/Horse/Camp/The Dead/Forces was all shot in Vieques, Puerto Rico—an island that was used as a bombing range by the US Navy in Puerto Rico for 60 years, and that for the past 10 has been fighting for its decontamination.

The film weaves together images of a man who cares for horses that roam the old target range; a black magnetite beach that is slowly eroding, an artist who has helped to resurrect a sacred tree which was once within the Navy’s gates and who has herself resurrected from illness more than once, a man who hopes his ritual movements return the island of Vieques to a cosmic balance—all of these are intertwined— land, toxic bomb, political work, celebration and death. (from the filmmaker)

After Earth (Dir. Jess X. Snow, 2018, 14min)

Synopsis: AFTEREARTH is an immersive short film about how four women from different parts of the world draw their understandings of motherhood through connections with the environment. Featuring a chant by Hinaleimoana Wong-Kalu, a poem by Isabella Borgeson, a song by Kayla Briët, and a heartfelt reflection between Wan Ping Oshiro and her son Kit Yan, AFTEREARTH is ideally experienced as a 3-channel installation. It was created by a mostly LGBTQIA+ cast and crew of Asians, Pacific Islanders, of all age ranges.

Akakaw (Renata Flores, 2023, 5min)

Synopsis: Music video for Quechuan Peruvian artist Renata Flores’s recent single “Akakaw,” in which she reflects on her visit to the Murui Buue and meeting the last remaining Taushiro speaker.

Discussion Questions:

• What examples of “speaking nearby” can be witnessed in the films? How do they inform the structure of the films?
• How does poetry and lyricism serve to process the political struggles raised in the films?
• How do nature aesthetics play a role in the films?

Additional Sources:

http://www.fabricainutil.com/pdfs/signbroadsheetlowres.pdf