PRODUCTION BACKGROUND
The final idea emerged in 2023 as a proposal by Víctor Sauca, Research Lead at Native Land Digital, after serving for a year as president of the Ñamarín Community. While holding this position, he realized that there are daily processes and activities that, although they may seem ordinary, are key to understanding the relationship between water and the organizational structure of the community.
Motivated by this reflection, he proposed an audiovisual production project to the organization with the goal of bringing Native Land Digital to physical Indigenous territories. This is how the documentary eventually focused on the administrative history of water in the Ñamarín Community, aiming to explore how traditional knowledge is integrated into administrative management practices. The project took shape in 2024 after receiving approval from the community to carry out the recordings. This is an original production by Native Land Digital. Produced by Ariel Chalán, Henry Zaruma, Silvia Medina, and Víctor Sauca.
SYNOPSIS
AYLLU: Memories and Visions is the story of the evolution and implementation of a management system that enables the Ñamarín Community to address its water related challenges. It is an acknowledgment of the power of tradition and innovation for implementing the development the community envisions. It also is an invitation to reflect upon the gradual construction of the pillars that support the organizational structure of a community on its ancestral territory, which allows its members to crystallize their visions for their future in unity.
LOCATION
AYLLU: Memories and Visions was filmed in the territory of the Ñamarín Community, Saraguro People, Kichwa Nationality, located in the southern Andean region of Ecuador.r
EXECUTIVE PRODUCER
Native Land Digital strives to create and foster conversations about the history of colonialism, Indigenous ways of knowing, and settler-Indigenous relations, through educational resources such as maps. They strive to go beyond old ways of talking about Indigenous people and to develop a platform where Indigenous communities can represent themselves and their histories on their own terms. In doing so, Native Land Digital creates spaces where non-Indigenous people can be invited and challenged to learn more about the lands they inhabit, the history of those lands, and how to actively be part of a better future going forward together.
FILM CREW
Photo by Ayllu Land.
VICTOR SAUCA (GENERAL PRODUCER, SCRIPT)
ARIEL CHALÁN (DIRECTOR)
SILVIA MEDINA (ASSOCIATE PRODUCER, SCRIPT, ART DIRECTION)
HENRY ZARUMA (DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY)
AMAWTA LOZANO (SOUND MIXING)
Ayllu Land 