Aluna

Aluna
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Alan Ereira
Produced by	Alan Ereira
Starring	Alan Ereira Mama Manuel Coronado Mama Shibulata Zarabata Francisca Zarabata
Music by	Alejandro Ramirez Rojas
Cinematography	Paulo Andrés Pérez
Editing by	Andrew Philip
Studio	Sunstone Films
Release dates	June 17, 2012 (2012-06-17) (Sheffield Doc/Fest) [1]
Running time	91 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English, Kogi (English Subtitles)
Budget	£899,000 (estimated)[2]

Aluna is a feature-length documentary film sequel to the BBC documentary The Heart of The World: Elder Brother's Warning (1990). The first documentary showed an ancient Kogi tribe civilisation (the Elder Brother) who emerge to offer their concern for people of the modern world ( Younger Brother). Younger Brother is urged to change or suffer environmental disaster. After offering the warning the Kogi retreat back to civilisation hidden in a mountain in Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia.^[3][4]

The Kogis have re-emerged. Long-ago realising that the importance of their warning had not been grasped.^[5] As well as warning Younger Brother they have decided to share their secret sciences in the belief that sharing these new sciences will share their burden of changing the world for the better.^[6]

Content summary

Realising that their warning in 1990 was not fully grasped the Kogis choose to become more proactive. Even though their civilisation have never used wheels and have no literature, they diligently study film cameras and train their own indigenous film crew.^[7][8] The Kogis ask for Alan Ereira, who they allowed to film their 1990 message to assist. Again the Kogi Mamos are more proactive and decide that there will be "no more secrets". They wanted to demonstrate their planetary healing sciences in front of the cameras to demonstrate their secret science to the modern world and to show visible and measurable results.^[9] They also wish to teach other people how to conduct these sciences in order to heal the world and they spoke with modern scientists as they feel that they have a different science to show them.^[10]

Kogi demonstration

In order to help to further convince the modern world of the importance preserving the planet, the Kogi give a demonstration of the interconnectivity of the planet. Which the Kogis claim will produce visible and measurable results.^[11] To do this a small group of Kogis travel to London, England to fetch 400 kilometres (250 miles) of gold thread, reportedly the longest ever made.^[12][13]

Mama Shibulata was one of the Kogis Mamos who visited London, England. During his stay he visits the observatory at the University of London and meets the Steele Professor of Astronomy Professor Richard Ellis who is astounded by the Kogi Mama's knowledge of both our own solar system and recent astronomical discoveries such as dark energy.^[14]

Coming back to Colombia with the gold thread they conduct the demonstration. A group of leading modern scientists observe the results and exclaim that the science of the Mamos may be at the 'cutting edge'^[15]

"They lay the gold thread from one river estuary in Colombia to another in order to show how the destruction of river estuaries feeds back up the river in the end to destroy the source of the river. Showing the interconnectedness of everything on the earth and this was the key element in what they were doing. The theme of what they were doing was showing that the earth itself is a living body in which everything is interconnected and damage to some of it is damage to all of it."— Alan Ereira.^[16]

Participation at UN summits

The 1990 documentary The Heart of The World: Elder Brother's Warning was shown at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in 1992 and was seen to inspire delegates to take action.^[17]

'Aluna' was produced in time for another important UN environmental conference, the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development held at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil from 20–22 June 2012. Two Kogi Mamos shall be attending the conference the Rio conference could again be inspired by the Kogis.

Production

Originally the budget was set at £270,000. Alan Ereira had got Bruce Parry interested in the project and Parry met with the Kogi and the Kogi agreed. With Parry involved the BBC offered £180,000 and Indus Films offered a further £20,000.^[18] However, when Bruce Parry became 'committed to another project' the offer of funding from the BBC was withdrawn.^[19] Therefore, instead of this documentary being partly funded by the BBC, as the original documentary had been, Alan Ereira had to go back to seek alternative funding. Some of this funding came from the British charity The Onaway Trust who helped to fund Ereira's book on the Kogis, The Heart of the World.^[20]

As the Kogis had their own indigenous film crew this gave the film the advantage that previously unfilmed holy sites and practices which modern film crews were restricted from seeing could now be filmed.^[21] Throughout the collaboration the Kogis exercised their own autonomy with the film's director, Alan Ereira, looking forward to see what the indigenous film crew had recorded. The Mamos also took charge of what was going to be filmed as consulted Aluna through divinations.^[22]

The collaboration between the Indigenous Camera Crew and the Professional camera crew in Colombia amounted technical training in advance and for Alan Ereira to take a Camera operator and a Sound Recordist to work with their indigenous counterparts.^[23]

Participation in festivals

Aluna was chosen to be shown at the 2012 Sheffield International Documentary Festival where it would have its World premiere.^[24][25]

References

External links

• http://www.alunathemovie.com/en Official website of the second and final Kogi Mamos documentary
• http://www.taironatrust.org Information about the Kogis in South America
• Brief video report 2011 video report by Alan Ereira after filming in Colombia
• Aluna at the Internet Movie Database