Alonso's Dream by Danièle Lacourse and Yvan Patry (Canada)
In a small village of the Chiapas highlands, Alonso has a premonitory dream. Along with thousands of other Mayan Indians from this region of Mexico, he has to flee to survive. He returns to his village in order to save his family and 330 people taken hostages by a paramilitary group. In this film, Alonso takes us on a journey through the dreams and the values of the little known landscape of Maya Mexico as the larger conflict threatens to consume it.
Synopsis
Alonso, a Mayan peasant, lives in the Altos (highlands) of Chenalho, deep in the native heart of Chiapas, Mexico. As lay preacher, he plays a leading role in his village torn by the conflict which has violently split his community.
The confict is usually portrayed as pitting , Zapatista rebels against the Mexican government. But the recent escalation of fighting is a result of a government strategy to form local paramilitary units to do the dirty work. Like most of the Zapatistas, the paramilitaries are Mayan peasants, heavily armed and supported by several thousand elite troops and beefed-up police units. Their task is to ‘pacify’ the Chenalho countryside. Out of a population of thirty one thousand, ten thousand villagers have already been forced to flee their villages and move to ‘camps for the displaced’.
But the people of Chenalho, perhaps more than anywhere else in Chiapas, prefer their own ways. They belong to the Tzotzil group, fiercely loyal to their values and their ancestors. In Chenalho, the conflict is turning into two worlds - the Conquest and Mestizo-dominated Mexico against the Maya and their own way of life.
Alonso has a dream. In the Tzotzil tradition, dreams must be told to the elders, who will interprete their meaning to the community. Alonso dreams of a flight from fire, premonition of a journey into exile where, from family and friends, he finds the power to save 330 villagers from the claws of the paras.
Alonso's dream becomes a nightmare when 45 civilians from a neighboring village are massacred by the paramilitaries, some of them well-known to Alonso. With Maria, a survivor who lost nine family members in the massacre, Alonso gets involved in searching for truth and justice, in the name of those who were killed.
Alonso was trained as lay preacher by Miguel Chanteau, a French missionary who lived in Chenalho for 33 years. In recent years, Miguel Chanteau became an outspoken critic of the Mexican government; he survived several attempts on his life. He sees the massacre as a turning point, both personally and in terms of the larger conflict in Chiapas. The government brutally expelled him from the country in February 1998.
In this film, Alonso, Maria and Miguel Chanteau take us on a journey through the little known landscape of Maya Mexico as the larger conflict threatens to consume it.
La Fondation Alter-Ciné (named after the late Canadian filmmaker Yvan Patry)
www.sextans.com/altercine
Credits
Directed by: Danièle Lacourse and Yvan Patry
Camera: Jean-Pierre Saint-Louis
Sound: Stéphane Poulin
Editing (image): Annie Jean
Sound Editing: Catherine Van Der Donckt and Benoît Dame
Mix: Jean-Pierre Bissonnette
Music: René Lussier
Executive Producer: Yvan Patry
Associate Producer: Claire Lapointe
Produced by: Alter-Ciné Inc.
Running Time: 52 minutes
Year of production: 2000
Color
Original Version in Tzotzil, Spanish and French
Biography
Danièle Lacourse and Yvan Patry, scriptwriters, directors and producers, created Alter-Ciné production company in 1982. They co-directed many documentaries in various regions of the world, among them:
- Le Choc des Amériques : series of 8 documentaries on Central America, 1982;
- The Dirty War: Nicaragua, 1984;
- The Forbidden Land: Eritrea and Ethiopia, 1989 - jury Award at Nyon Documentary Festival;
- Night and Silence : Eritrea and Ethiopia, 1990 - First Award all categories, Canadian Association of Journalists (ACJ);
- Denial : Salvador, 1994 - Judith Jasmin Award;
- Hand of God, Hand of the Devil: Rwanda, 1995 - Gemini Award for best editing and Hot Docs Award for best editing;
- Sitting on a Volcano: Rwanda, 1995;
- Chronicle of a Genocide Foretold: Rwanda, 1996 -Chalmers Award, Hot Docs First Award and Hot Docs Best Documentary Award.
Alonso's Dream is the last documentary film shot by Yvan Patry before his death on October 14, 1999.
Press
"Droom van een volk" - Muziek en Woord (Dutch)
"Alonso, Homme Libre" - La Presse (French)
"Comment sécouer l'écran des priviléges" - (French)
