An effort to give visibility to the voices and accounts of Panama's indigenous communities.
Wagua Films, in association with the IFF Panama Foundation, has launched the film training laboratory "Voices of the Territories." That program will offer two best-known participants with new opportunities in the cinema world. The lab will be held from 6 to 19 January 2025 and will include a hybrid approach, combining virtual and face-to-face sessions. During this time, 11 indigenous youth will get tools to tell their stories from their own perspective, using cinema as a means of transformation..
The initiative will have the guide of filmmakers Isabella Gálvez and Rodrigo Quintero, who will share their experience to assist participants to develop true and culturally significant film projects. The industry, through these close collaborations, is dedicated to creating new opportunities for emerging talents, especially for youth from our country's indigenous communities. Those who support spaces where they can form and connect with industry.
That's why they undertake to give two (2) fellowships to the participants of the workshop "Voices of the Territory," remarked Karla Quintero, Executive Director of IFF Panama. The fellowships offered by the IFF Panama Foundation include: industry accreditation, enabling beneficiaries to participate in exclusive activities at the Panama International Film Festival, and travel to Panama City, and access to the activities of the 13th edition of the Panama International Film Festival, to be held from 3 to 6 April 2025.
"Voices of the Territory" is an initiative created and organized by Wagua Films, that will provide film training to the indigenous nations of Panama, with the aim of strengthening the process of creation and promoting the knowledge and learning of cinema, with a view to developing and materializing the film language from the perspective of the indigenous territories. Duiren Wagua, director of the program and founder of Wagua Films, emphasized that "the collaboration of the IFF Panama Foundation is an important step to give visibility to the emerging talent of the indigenous communities on international platforms as well as the Panama Film Festival." That initiative reaffirms them with our key and international participation with the information and information and information and information and information and information about how to strengthen them.