TRAILERS

Saving Paraguayan Ayoreo Culture in 'Nothing But The Sun' Doc Trailer

by Alex Billington
November 23, 2020
Source: YouTube

"All those beliefs are going to disappear." An early promo / sales trailer has debuted for a Paraguayan doc called Nothing But The Sun, made by Paraguayan filmmaker Arami Ullon. The film is premiering at the prestigious IDFA Film Festival for documentaries in Amsterdam this month, hence why this trailer is out now. The documentary follows Mateo Sobode Chiqueno, a Paraguayan man who has been recording stories, songs, and testimonies of his Ayoreo people on an old tape recorder since the 1970s. He is still traveling around the Chaco region even today, trying to record their voices before they disappear forever. Facing the consequences of a violent uprooting and in an attempt to preserve fragments of the disappearing culture, Mateo walks across communities in the arid and desolate Paraguayan Chaco region. The ultimate question the film (and his stories) ponders: "Is it a problem that a culture disappears in order to adapt to another?" This looks like a compelling doc film about culture and identity made with compassion and understanding.

Here's the official trailer (+ poster) for Arami Ullon's doc Nothing But The Sun, direct from YouTube:

The film's description from IDFA: "Mateo Sobode Chiqueno's Ayoreo ancestors worshiped the sun, which they saw as a superior and generous being. But for him and his generation, the sun has primarily become a threat, turning deforested areas into dry, dusty plains—filmed here beautifully but ominously. Some Ayoreo still live in seclusion in the forests of the Chaco in Paraguay. But many more, among them Sobode Chiqueno, were herded into isolated settlements by missionaries, who took their land and forcibly converted them to Christianity. He started recording Ayoreo conversations, stories, and songs [back] in the 1970s, and is still traveling to Ayoreo communities with his now-antique cassette recorder to interview them and collect their voices for his audio archive. Occasionally the device eats a tape, which he fixes with patient fiddling. The conversations express uncertainty about the loss of identity… Is it a problem that a culture disappears in order to adapt to another?" Nothing But the Sun, originally known as Apenas el Sol in Spanish, is directed by Paraguayan filmmaker Arami Ullon, director of the other documentary Cloudy Times previously. This is premiering at the IDFA Film Festival this year - no release date is set yet. Visit the film's official website.

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