- The retrospective ‘Two Shores, One Eternal Debate. The Valladolid Controversy’ is an ambitious program that analyzes the European presence in America from multiple perspectives and geographical origins
- The film experience will be completed with an academic dialogue on Monday, October 27 within the ‘Thinking Cinema in Seminci’ activities
475 years ago, on August 15, 1550, one of the most momentous and oldest debates on human rights documented in Western history began: the Controversy of Valladolid. The Valladolid International Film Festival (SEMINCI) will commemorate this historic milestone in its 70th edition (October 24-November 1) with an ambitious series of 17 feature films that examine the reinterpretation of the Conquest of America from both sides of the Atlantic.
The Valladolid Controversy (1550-1551) pitted two key figures of the time against each other: Bartolomé de las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, who engaged in a theological-legal debate on whether the indigenous peoples of America possessed rational souls and, therefore, whether their conquest and enslavement could be morally justified under the principles of natural law and Christian doctrine.
The program ‘Two shores, one eternal debate. The Valladolid Controversy’could be considered one of the most comprehensive retrospectives to date on the cinematic representation of the colonial legacy, both in terms of its geographical and temporal scope. The selection includes titles from Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Spain, Mexico, Peru, Portugal, and Venezuela, filmed between 1930 and the 21st century, many of them the result of exhaustive research and documentation. Curated by a group of programmers from Colombia, Uruguay, Peru, Argentina, and Spain. Among them are feature films signed by Nelson Pereira dos Santos, Arturo Ripstein, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Manoel de Oliveira, Lucrecia Martel and Carlos Saura.
Academic dialogue that enriches the cinematic experience
The screenings will be completed with a monographic publication and a space for reflection in which specialists from Spain and Latin America will participate, creating an academic dialogue that will enrich the cinematic experience. SEMINCI will hold the roundtable discussion ‘The Controversy of Valladolid’ on Monday, October 27, at noon, within the framework of the ‘Thinking Cinema at Seminci’ activities. Moderated by Dr. José Manuel Chillón Lorenzo, professor and chair of Philosophy at UVa, the meeting will feature Alejandra Trelles, artistic director of the Uruguayan Cinematheque and director of the International Film Festival of Uruguay; Marina Stavenhagen, screenwriter, writer, filmmaker and director of the Mexican Film Archive, among other specialists, and Víctor J. Vázquez Alonso, essayist (The Artist’s Freedom. Censorship, Limits and Cancellations, Athenaica, 2023) and professor of Constitutional Law at the University of Seville.
The publication, included within the October issue of Caimán. Cuadernos de Cine magazine, includes articles written by writer and film historian Paulo Antonio Paranaguá; critic and programmer Roger Koza; professor and critic José Enrique Monterde, and Dr. Rocío Ruiz Pleguezuelos, historian and film researcher.
Pioneer visions that questioned the colonial canon (1930-1970)
Ibero-American cinematography began to debate the official narratives of colonialism in the early decades of the 20th century.
Wara Wara (Bolivia, 1930), by José María Velasco Maidana, is one of the first Latin American silent films to address the Spanish conquest from an indigenous perspective, using the tragic romance between an Inca princess and a Spanish conquistador as a vehicle to denounce the destruction of pre-Columbian cultures. SEMINCI will screen the copy restored in 2010 after 20 years of recovery and digitization work from camera negatives found in a trunk in 1989. Unlike the original version, it includes a new original soundtrack created by Sergio Prudencio, Alberto Villalpando, and Atiliano Auza.
In the 1970s, Nelson Pereira dos Santos marked a milestone in Brazilian Cinema Novo with How Tasty Was My Little Frenchman (Brazil, 1971), based on the adventures of Hans Staden and reports by chroniclers, depicting the attempt to integrate a Frenchman into the cannibalistic indigenous tribe that has captured him and plans to sacrifice and eat him. The filmmaker faithfully portrays indigenous customs, including the Tupi language and nudity, which complicated its approval by the censors.
In the same decade, Mexican Arturo Ripstein addressed the persecution of Jews accused of causing an epidemic in colonial Mexico during the 16th century in The Holy Inquisition (Mexico, 1973). Based on historical events, it stands out for its meticulous historical reconstruction, its analysis of the mechanisms of religious and social control, and its reflection of religious intolerance.
The Last Supper (Cuba, 1976), by prestigious filmmaker Tomás Gutiérrez Alea denounces slavery and capitalism through the true story of the aristocratic owner of a Cuban sugar plantation in the 18th century who decides to offer dinner to twelve of his slaves during Holy Week.
The European mirror: self-criticism and co-production (1980-1990)
In the 1980s and 1990s, Spanish co-productions and films emerged that re-examined the colonial legacy from more complex and self-critical perspectives, while maintaining a European gaze. El Dorado (Spain, France, Italy, 1988), by Carlos Saura, recreates Lope de Aguirre’s expedition through the Amazon as a dreamlike tale about the madness of power and excessive ambition.
Cabeza de Vaca (Mexico, Spain, United States, United Kingdom, 1991), by Nicolás Echevarría, explores the processes of identity transformation through the adventures of the shipwrecked explorer Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, played by Juan Diego. Its visual proposal, combining realism and mystical elements, makes it a poetic reflection on miscegenation.
Conflicting voices: evangelization and resistance (1990-2000)
Films shot in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Argentina in the 1990s and 2000s help us understand how Latin American cinema has processed its history and constructed its identity, while Portuguese director Manoel de Oliveira rescues the figure of Jesuit António Vieira, defender of the same ideas in favor of indigenous peoples that Bartolomé de las Casas supported in the Valladolid Controversy.
Jorge Sanjinés (Golden Spike at Seminci in 1970) reflects in To Hear the Birds Singing (Bolivia, 1995) how a group of Bolivian filmmakers, who are shooting a film about the Spanish conquest in a remote Andean indigenous community, unwittingly reproduce the same attitudes and prejudices they criticize in the conquistadors. SEMINCI is screening the restored copy of this film, starring Geraldine Chaplin, for the first time in Spain.
In Jerichoa (Venezuela, 1991), Luis Alberto Lamata presents the story of a 16th-century Dominican friar who is taken in by the Caribbean Indians after being the sole survivor of the conquest expedition led by the German Ambrosio Alfínger.
In addition to conquistadors and priests, America attracted explorers and scientists. Jorge Acha reflects in Mburucuyá. Portraits of Nature (Argentina, 1991) the journey of two of them, thinker Alexander Humboldt and botanist Aimée Bonpland, at the end of the 18th century, and the encounter between their Western worldview and that of the Yaruro Indians.
Brazilian director Lúcia Murat brought to the screen in Brave New Land (Brazil, Portugal, 2000) a historical event: the uprising of a group of Gaicuru Indians against the Portuguese colonizers at the end of the 18th century in the military settlement of Forte Coímbra.
Word and Utopia (Portugal, 2000), by Manoel de Oliveira, explores the evangelizing work in Brazil of the Jesuit António Vieira from his youth to his death, as well as his conflicts with the Portuguese Inquisition. Through Vieira’s portrayal as a defender of dignified treatment for indigenous people and an opponent of slavery, the director reflects on the confrontation between earthly and religious power, as well as freedom versus power structures.
The Elusive Good (Peru, 2001), by Augusto Tamayo, goes back to the 17th century to portray Peruvian viceregal society through the love story of a mestizo ex-soldier fugitive from religious justice and a novice who hides her vocation as a poet.
New contemporary perspectives (2015-2021)
21st-century cinema has developed sophisticated and experimental approaches, incorporating new narrative methodologies and a more mature awareness.
Embrace of the Serpent (Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, 2015), by Ciro Guerra, follows the journeys of two European scientists separated by decades in their encounter with an Amazonian shaman. It constructs a temporal dialogue between eras about the consequences of colonialism for indigenous cultures.
Epitaph (Mexico, France, Colombia, 2015) tells the story of three Spanish conquistadors who march toward the summit of Popocatépetl volcano in 1519 on the orders from Hernán Cortés. Mexican filmmakers Yulene Olaizola and Rubén Ímaz convey the expeditionaries’ fears, their affirmation in Catholic faith and devotion to the emperor, constructing a humanized vision of the conquistador figure.
Zama (Argentina, Spain, France, Mexico, Brazil, United States, Netherlands, 2017), by Lucrecia Martel, deconstructs the codes of traditional historical cinema, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere to reflect colonial power. Its aesthetic approach and implicit judgment of structures of domination make it one of the most innovative works in recent Latin American cinema.
They Carry Death, the first feature film by Helena Girón and Samuel M. Delgado (Spain, Colombia, 2021), examines the legacies of colonial violence in the present, establishing connections between the conquest and contemporary conflicts. Its approach combines historical archives, testimonies, and fiction to create a complex reflection on the permanence of colonial structures.
In his debut film, Al Oriente (Ecuador, 2021), Ecuadorian José María Avilés focuses on a construction worker building a road that will cross the Llanganates mountain range, where an Inca treasure is said to be hidden. The worker imagines himself as the guide of an expedition in search of the treasure in the early 20th century that gets lost in the jungle.
The program ‘Two shores, one eternal debate. The Valladolid Controversy’ and the roundtable discussion are part of the program organized by the Valladolid City Council to mark the 475th anniversary of this historic debate, which includes concerts, conferences, and congresses, and has been endorsed by the multidisciplinary scientific committee that forms part of the Organizing Committee.