-to screen two short films tonight

THE Timehri Film Festival is back this year with ‘Timehri Cinema Nights,’ a film screening series showcasing Guyanese and Caribbean films, with the latest showing billed for tonight at ‘Fresh’, a healthy food spot at Carmichael and Lamaha Streets in Georgetown, from 18:30 hours.

Today marks the Earth Day screening, while the Pride Month screening will be on June 8.

“We don’t have August and September dates yet, but we will be doing an Emancipation month screening and an Indigenous heritage month screening,” Festival Director and organiser of the Cinema Nights programme, Romola Lucas, told Buzz this week.

With admission being free, the first screening for this year celebrated women and featured a collection of six short films centering on the experiences of Guyanese and Caribbean women.

Two films will be screened, the feature length documentary, Uncivilised, “a very Caribbean story” about the decimation of an entire Caribbean island by a category five hurricane, and how the country survived it, and the short film, Rodori ~ Wanore (Healing of the Earth), which highlights the ancestral indigenous knowledge about humans’ connection with the earth.

“Post-screening, we love engaging in lively conversations. These films bring up themes of spirituality, collective responsibility, community, climate change, and human relations in the face of crisis.

“In the context of 2024 Guyana, who are we and how do we, as Guyanese, show up in these conversations? With our facilitation of the extraction of oil, while at the same time being forest stewards, and where the divide between the rich and poor is wider than it has ever been and about 40 per cent of the people in the country still live below the poverty line. We are poised to see rabid (a step beyond rapid) economic growth while resisting considerations of the impact of extraction (economic, social and environmental), our responsibility to care for our earth, and infuse balance in our choices. There is no shortage of views on this, and we would love to hear them all,” Lucas expressed.

Rodori ~ Wanore (Healing of the World) is directed by Bladimir Rivera Macuna of The Collective Jaguares del Yurupari. The Payees of the Barasano people in the Pira Parana River of the Colombian Amazon, show and explain the path of shamanic thought and the need to heal the world, to maintain natural balance and healthy life.

‘Uncivilised’ by Michael Lees stretches over 75 minutes. Disenchanted with the modern world, Lees heads into the forest of Dominica with some basic survival gear, religious texts, a camera, and questions: “Why did man ever leave the forest? And what makes for a good life?” Just as he starts to acclimatise to his new life – the unexpected: Category 5 Hurricane Maria, one of the top ten Atlantic hurricanes in history, makes direct landfall.

Michael must ride out the hurricane in his palm leaf and bamboo hut. With the nation in ruins, the forest destroyed, and essential services knocked out island wide, the entire country must now return to a past way of life if they hope to survive.