Film Essay with sound, 4K, 14′ Spanish

Upriver is a cinematic cartography of the Colombian Amazon where indigenous resistance, trees, soil, clouds, light and shadow coexist. The two-channel film essay follows a journey up the Putumayo River. Starting from the Siona territory in the lower Amazon at 300 metres above sea level (masl) to the Quillacinga territory in the highlands of the Colombian Andes at 3000 masl, “Río Arriba [Upstream]” takes the viewer along a meandering river that crosses disputed territories. As part of this riverside journey, different types of clouds are discussed: some are formed by fog, some by fire and some by chemical spray. Here overlapping sovereignties emerge and extractive industries clash with human and non-human communities resisting violence along this vertical axis of power and occupation.