Three brave Colombian women fight for basic human rights in WE WOMEN WARRIORS
WE WOMEN WARRIORS (TEJIENDO SABIDURÍA) (Nicole Karsin, 2012)
IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave. at Third St.
August 10-16
Series continues through August 23
212-924-7771
www.ifccenter.com
www.wewomenwarriors.com
“If we don’t open our eyes, if we are afraid of challenges, then we won’t be cultivating life,” Flor Ilva Triochez says near the start of the compelling documentary We Women Warriors, continuing, “We will be cultivating death.” From 2002 to 2009, journalist Nicole Karsin covered the ongoing bloody battle in Colombia between the army, the paramilitary, and rebel guerrillas, a violent struggle whose collateral damage includes atrocities being suffered by the more than one hundred indigenous tribes caught in the middle, their very existence being threatened by the unending drug-related violence. Karsin picked up a camera to tell the story through the eyes of three three brave women who, independent of one another, decided to do what the government and others refused to and take matters into their own hands. Karsin follows Doris Puchana, an Awá governor who risks her life by speaking out publicly about a horrific massacre; Ludis Rodriguez, a Kankuamao mother who watched her husband get murdered and was then falsely accused of having killed fifteen policemen; and Flor Ilva, who, as the first female leader of the Nasa people in three hundred years, demands that the police take down their barracks and leave her community. Eventually the three amazing women come together to share details not only of their lives but of their organizational methods, unwilling to be silenced as they seek peace for their people. Part of the sixteenth annual DocuWeeks festival at the IFC Center, We Women Warriors is an inspiring tale filled with hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, as three strong women overcome personal tragedy to fight for justice and freedom. We Women Warriors runs August 10-16, with the filmmakers on hand for one of the two daily screenings. The festival continues through August 23 with such other documentaries as Eugene Martin’s The Anderson Monarchs, about an African-American girls soccer team in an at-risk Philadelphia neighborhood, Dafna Yachin’s Digital Dharma: One Man’s Mission to Save a Culture, about Mormon E. Gene Smith’s determination to preserve ancient Sanskrit and Tibetan writings, and Thomas Riedelsheimer’s Garden in the Sea, in which Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias builds an underwater sculpture in the Mexican Sea of Cortez.