Marcos Arriaga

A short experimental film that explores ancients natives cities in America. Images of Machu Pichu, Sacsayhuaman, Uxmal, Chichen Itza, and Mesa Verde had been blow up from Super 8 to 16 mm, handheld developed and reticulated to create an evocative view of our past.

A box of stunning family photos awakens grief and lost memories as they are viewed for the first time on camera.

My Gentrification is a documentary film consisting of two independent sections that explore my experiences and observations about housing, urban living and the rapidly changing landscape of Toronto. These ideas are presented using personal film footage on Super-8 or 16mm and interviews with local residents which I have been collecting since late 1990. For nearly 20 years, I have filmed small segments of daily life, street events and personal moments. This footage began taking on more meaning and structure as time passed and the neighbourhood started changing. I discovered that it is a record exploring a body of ideas and thoughts that can be used to talk about the process and impact of gentrification in Toronto. (MA)

In his most ravishing and heartbreaking work, Arriaga ventures again to his native Peru in search of a lost friend. Along the way he encounters the faces of those who speak about wounds that cannot heal—survivors recounting the deaths and disappearances of their beloveds during Peru's civil war that pitted the communists of The Shining Path against the government, with both sides aligned against the people. "The dead have called us to find them," remarks Lida Flores de Huaman, and Marcos follows her evocation, cutting memory trails into Peru that bring back the names of the disappeared. Using frames that are strong and tender, steady and compassionate, he summons a community of memorials that dare to remember.

Assembly is a short film that illustrates the struggle of the working class in Peru, in relation to the global workers movement. The grainy images, canted shots, still images and Russian montages offer a captivating five minutes of social reality in the fight against Neoliberalism.

These three short films consist of perceptive depictions of a public square in Lima, the view from his mother's rooftop, and work at the Toronto Film Festival revision department. The filmmaker used 16 mm as documentary format. Each film in this series is almost three-minutes long, which is the length of one roll of 16 mm film. The entire film uses in-camera editing, therefore all the editing decisions were made on location.

Personifying Mother Earth, she walks through her domain. She observes her environment and what has happened to it. She weeps. She feels violated. Not only has man damaged her but they continue to damage each other. She sighs. She will visit and start again sometime soon.

This all-Native production, by director Shelley Niro (Mohawk), is part of the Smoke Signals new wave of films that examine Native identity in the 1990’s.