In a land where people have known nothing but war, a tightly knit and fiercely proud people, the Nasa, fight for the land stolen from their ancestors while fending off the violence encroaching on their nation. Their charismatic leader is Lucho Acosta, 39, an imposing tactician descended from Indian warriors. He knows from experience that violence only breeds more violence. But facing nearly insurmountable odds, Lucho’s beliefs are tested to their very core. The future of the Nasa hangs in the balance. Directed by Margarita Martinez and Miguel Salazar Aparicio.
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Margarita Martinez, Colombian filmmaker and journalist, Martínez recently finished “Stolen Land” on the indigenous struggle for land in Colombia. Her first film, the 2005 documentary “La Sierra,” won numerous international awards for its raw depiction of Medellín street gangs. She is about to complete “Sniffing the Rainforest,” a documentary that focuses on the environmental damage wrought by the cocaine trade. She also directed two shorts. “The battle of silence,” about the murder of a regional journalist in Colombia and the impunity surrounding homicides against journalists in Latin America, (2007). Her second short is “En la tierra del olvido” the Colombian chapter of a BBC series on sexual and reproductive rights, shown on 2008. For seven years, Martinez covered Colombia’s civil conflict for the Associated Press, moving with ease among Marxist guerrilla chiefs and their arch-enemies, the commanders of right-wing death squads. She got her start at NBC in New York in 1998. Educated as a lawyer in Colombia, Martinez earned masters degrees in journalism and international affairs from Colombia University. She was a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University in 2009.
Free and open to the public. A reception will follow the event