Event

Name: Yaa Ye'e: Quartz Deities / Karuara, People of the River
Start: 2025-10-14T18:30
End: 2025-10-14T20:15
Location: The Beacon Cinema

Yaa Ye'e: Quartz Deities / Karuara, People of the River

Yaa Ye'e: Quartz Deities
(Short Documentary, Mexico, Language: Spanish w/ English subtiles, 20 min. 2024) Directed by Julio César Saavedra Castro

Mixtec-Zapotec antiquity reverberates in an instant. Their ancient voices whisper the memory of time and invoke deities that reveal deep secrets etched in stone. Quartz Deities is a look at the ungraspable, a liminal window that leads to mineral memories where the apparent univocal directionality of time is interrupted, diluted with the forces of nature and the cosmos.

Karuara, People of the River
(Documentary Feature, Peru, Language: Spanish w/ English subtiles, 77 min. 2024) Directed by Stephanie Boyd, Miguel Araoz

Mariluz Canaquiri says her river is a more than just a body of water, its a living being. The Marañón River deep in Perus Amazon region is home to a vast network of spirit villages ruled by the Karuara, which means people of the river in Kukama-Kukamiria, Mariluzs indigenous language.

The Karuaras universe mirrors human society with an aquatic twist: river spirits lounge in hammocks made of boa constrictors, they smoke sardines and wear stingray hats and catfish shoes. Laughing Karuara children ride to school on giant turtles or play football with an inflated blowfish in the films stunning hand painted animations.