Hotel America: Master DV

Transcript (Download)

You You You 1538 The women and the men of the Chibcha Nation hear the sounds of three armies slashing their way through their sacred mountains The armies take possession of the land They believe that in that land sheets of gold hang like fruits from the trees and precious stones and metal emanate their radiance from the depths of the waters The Chibcha Nation, records the historian, was destined to enter history as extinct people The Chibcha Nation, records the historian, was destined to enter history as extinct people The Chibcha Nation, records the historian, was destined to enter history as extinct people The Chibcha Nation, records the historian, was destined to enter history as extinct people 1562 A merchant gets permission from the Spanish crown to drain the waters of Guadalupe He takes with him as many Indians as he needs To prevent them from dying in the icy cold he keeps them drunk The mountain is cut Very few pieces of gold are found The dead bodies disappear Only the mountain saves the memory 1965 An old entrepreneur is interviewed He is convinced, like many others before him, that the treasures of El Dorado must be at the bottom of the lake The Wall Street Journal makes the news and a group of divers from Florida arrive The Chibcha Nation, records the historian, was destined to enter history as extinct people Summer of 1994 The Chibcha Nation, records the historian, was destined to enter history as extinct people Where people are drowning their sorrows Escaping from the reality that drowns them August, 1994 An August afternoon A view that defies the conventional order of representation Nothing appears to indicate the violent confrontations of the times Only the camera recording the silence of a war zone It is the silence that remembers the horrid presence of the death squads and the slow migrations of people surviving systematic extermination In Bogota the terrorists, or who knows who, bombed my house I screamed and prayed to the Virgin, please save my home I took the children from under the rubbish My son put his hand like this But nobody was hurt My faith is unbreakable We need help, the guerrillas are coming into our houses This is a valley of blood, the violence, the corruption, everything How can we continue such a terrible war? It coincides with other stories Body, blood, and blood Bodies are found in mass graves The bodies show signs of torture and many cannot be identified Someone protests and at night they take her away And her children Who tortures? Who murders? Who survives? Who succeeds in ignoring the devastating impact of the colonial adventure? Who benefits? At the beginning there was the sea Everything was dark The sea was the only source of life There was no sun, no moon, no people, no animals, no plants The sea was everywhere The sea was the mother The mother wasn't the people or anything She was the spirit of what was about to come She was thought and memory

Date Of Production

1994

Abstract

Hotel America is an experimental documentary poem focusing on the exploitation of the natural and human resources, in Colombia. The verbal narrative is poetic and includes historical accounts, myth, and personal testimonies. The footage was shot in the city and surrounding areas of Bogota, Colombia, and at Guatavita -a lake near Bogota.

Description

Hotel America was originally presented as a two channel video installation. It was exhibited across the United States including at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY, and the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Sheboygan, WI.

For viewing online, the left and right channels have been combined into a single video file.

Reel/Tape Number

1/1

Format

Cassette Tape ➜ minidv

Genre

Documentary
Experimental

Form

Short

Subject

Militaries
Nature
History

Related Collections

SERIES II: Hotel America

Related Places

South America ➜ Colombia ➜ Bogota

Main Credits

Malagrino, Silvia A. (is director)

Do you know more about this item?

If you have more information about this item please contact us at info@chicagofilmarchives.com.