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Guanape Sur
Guanape Sur. A barren rock island off the coast of Peru. No soil, no water. Nothing is growing here.
Around its shores a restricted area has been established. The island serves hundreds of thousands of sea birds as a breeding ground.
One of its peculiarities is that for a period of ten years only two men may live...
Guanape Sur. A barren rock island off the coast of Peru. No soil, no water. Nothing is growing here.
Around its shores a restricted area has been established. The island serves hundreds of thousands of sea birds as a breeding ground.
One of its peculiarities is that for a period of ten years only two men may live on it, in the eleventh year though, hundreds of men simultaneously pounce on its slopes in order to recover the bird's bequests: dried...
Guanape Sur. A barren rock island off the coast of Peru. No soil, no water. Nothing is growing here.
Around its shores a restricted area has been established. The island serves hundreds of thousands of sea birds as a breeding ground.
One of its peculiarities is that for a period of ten years only two men may live on it, in the eleventh year though, hundreds of men simultaneously pounce on its slopes in order to recover the bird's bequests: dried excrement, an acrid mixture of nitrogen and phosphor compounds, potassium oxide and quicklime, which blunts one's sense of smell. It can be used as a fertilizer or for producing dynamite. Its name is one of the few words the world borrowed from the language of the Incas: guano.
A war has been fought over guano. And even during peacetime, harvesting it from the sharp rock is a brutal fight. Everything on the island is done by hand.
A barren rock island off the coast of Peru. Every eleven years hundreds of men come here, to dig up guano, the shit the birds leave behind. ...provides an introspective visual peek into the backbreaking work and dramatically stark scenery involved in this hand harvest. ...the attractive cinematography, with its combination of panoramic vistas and intimate human moments, gives the audience a window into the people behind this unusual Peruvian profession and an austere island seascape few of us will see in person.' -Science Books and Films'A barren island off the coast of Peru is the breeding ground for thousands of sea birds that are its sole inhabitants. Once every eleventh year, hundreds of men make their way to the island to harvest the birds' dried excrement, which is then used as valuable fertilizer. Through gorgeous cinematography and patient observation, Janos Richter offers an intriguing look at a most unlikely of jobs, in the most unlikely of places.' -Sky Sitney, AFI Discovery Silver Docs Show more Show less
In The Wake Of HMS Sheffield
Mexican People, Episode 6, Science and Technology
Mona, Tesoro del Caribe
Mona is a beautiful, distant, mythic and mysterious island, full of amazing caves and interesting legends. Above all it is our Caribbean treasure. A completely flat island that emerged from the bottom of the sea thousands of years ago, it was a ceremonial center for the Taínos, the original inhabitants, who pract...
Mona is a beautiful, distant, mythic and mysterious island, full of amazing caves and interesting legends. Above all it is our Caribbean treasure. A completely flat island that emerged from the bottom of the sea thousands of years ago, it was a ceremonial center for the Taínos, the original inhabitants, who practiced their rituals in its amazing and diverse caves. In Mona’s caves, they created pictograms: faces, bodies with frog legs or bat wi...
Mona is a beautiful, distant, mythic and mysterious island, full of amazing caves and interesting legends. Above all it is our Caribbean treasure. A completely flat island that emerged from the bottom of the sea thousands of years ago, it was a ceremonial center for the Taínos, the original inhabitants, who practiced their rituals in its amazing and diverse caves. In Mona’s caves, they created pictograms: faces, bodies with frog legs or bat wings, among other representations, which are still preserved, thanks to the inaccessibility of the island. With the Spanish arrival and later, with the subsequent influx of pirates, ships anchored at Mona to stock up on food and water, provided by the Taínos. Between the 19th and 20th century, more than 600 men extracted guano, a fertilizer, which was highly appreciated worldwide.
Presently, Mona Island is a natural reserve managed by the Department of Natural Resources and the Environment. Biologists research and preserve hawksbill turtles, iguanas that are endemic to Mona as well as other animals. Once a year the “cobada” is a unique spectacle of seashells that slowly get to the shores from the “meseta” and for one night without moon, they mate and then go back to the “meseta”. For the past 10 years, an interdisciplinary and multi-institutional project called “El corazón del Caribe” [The Heart of the Caribbean] has brought together world-renowned speleologists, British and Puerto Rican archaeologists, and graduate students from the Center for Advances Studies of Puerto Rico and the Caribbean to explore and find new meanings to the Taíno legacy. So far, they have mapped over 200 caves on the island.
This feature documentary will help us promote awareness and educate others about the rich history of Mona and the spectacular fauna that inhabits it. This documentary will be screened in theaters in December 2017, and subsequently through various channels and platforms.
Mona es una isla llena de misterio, cuevas y leyendas.Y sobre todo es nuestro tesoro. Es una isla completamente plana que emergió del fondo del mar hace miles de años. Fue un centro ceremonial para los taínos. Nuestros pobladores originarios practicaban sus rituales en las cuevas de Mona. Algunas accesibles sólo bajando por sogas ya que se encuentran hasta 40 metros bajo la meseta. Dejaron plasmadas en las paredes pictografías y pictogramas pintadas con sus dedos. Caritas, cuerpos con patas de rana y murciélagos son algunas de las representaciones que aún se preservan gracias a lo inaccesible del lugar. Con la llegada de los españoles, y el posterior paso de los piratas, los barcos anclaban en Mona para abastecerse de comida y agua que los taínos agricultores les proveían. Entre el siglo XIX y XX hubo una gran explotación de guano, poderoso fertilizante extraído de las cuevas y que ocupaba a casi 600 hombres.
En la actualidad es una reserva del Departamento de Recursos Naturales. También es el refugio más cercano donde llegan inmigrantes cubanos buscando asilo político. Un proyecto interdisciplinario llamado El corazón del Caribe reúne a espeleólogos de reconocimiento mundial como Pat Kambesis y Make Lace y a los arqueólogos británicos Jago Cooper del British Museum y Alice Sampson de Cambridge University. Participan también estudiantes de maestría y doctorado que se unen a estos expertos para aprender y convertirse en los futuros expertos de la isla. En su labor han encontrado y hecho mapas de más de 200 cuevas en Mona. Según Cooper, la nueva teoría prueba la importancia de la isla de Mona como un centro que unía a los taínos de República Dominicana y de Cuba.
Este documental de largometraje servirá para dar a conocer y educar sobre las maravillas que alberga Mona. El estreno será en Fine Arts en diciembre del 2016.
Show more Show lessNostalgia for the Light
Director Patricio Guzman travels to Chile's Atacama Desert where astronomers examine distant galaxies, archaeologists uncover traces of ancient civilizations, and women dig for the remains of disappeared relatives.
'Stunningly beautiful. I don't know how you can put more into a film, or make one that's more deeply moving.' -Stuart Klawans, The Nation
'An extraordinary film about the unknown and the unknowable.' -Sight and Sound Magazine
'An amazing film! Nostalgia for the Light gave me goosebumps so many times I lost count.' -Andy 'Copernicus' Howell, Ain't It Cool News
'Deeply Affecting!' Critics Pick -New York Magazine
'Such a moving masterpiece... NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT is Guzman's leap into a different sort of cinema: a philosophical treatise that is as stunning to the eye as it is disturbing to the brain... I was enthralled. So was the audience around me.' -B. Ruby Rich, SF360
**** 'NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT may just be the most profound movie I have ever seen.' -Peter Howell, Toronto Star
**** 'The ideas in NOSTALGIA FOR THE LIGHT are nearly as big as the Big Bang, but Guzman's wise and lovely film maintains a careful balance between matters both macro and micro.' -Jason Anderson, Eye Weekly
'The film is gorgeous, purposefully slow, almost a meditation. Guzman tells us life in the Atacama Desert is an eternal book of memories. And he lingers on every page, capturing shots of constellations with the care of a master photographer. Imagine Ansel Adams, working in colour, let loose in the Milky Way.' -Stephen Cole, The Globe and Mail
***1/2 'Combining politics and science in a stirring visual essay... Highly Recommended' -Video Librarian