Indigenous Filmmaking with Mainstream Ambitions: Intercultural Communication transcending Established Order

This paper analyses the emerging trend of transcending the limitations
of so-called indigenous cinema in the attempt to reach much wider audiences within mainstream circles. Using the case study of the Arhuaco filmmakers from the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, Colombia, this paper demonstrates how filmmaking practice which was initiated to give evidence of violence and repression in the region, become a handy tool to reach intercultural communication. Ethnographic methods applied in this research draw on my extensive fieldwork with the Arhuacos, which resulted in the production of a collaborative documentary focusing on their filmmaking. This investigation demonstrates that film can successfully function as a form of intercultural communication. Finally, this paper considers the possibility of breaking the long-established boundaries between mainstream and indigenous cinema. It concludes with an optimistic suggestion that the film's universal values make it a potentially very effective communication tool as well as a form of artistic expression.