HUGO SANTANDER'S intimate documentary on Colombia and Latin-America. How do people manage to survive in a third-world town? What are their expectations, their problems and their dreams? MANATI, PORTRAIT OF THIRD-WORLD HAPPY TOWN is an attempt to answer these and other questions posed by the social and political instability of Colombia. The documentary opens with a 10-minute personal meditation on the recent violent history of Colombia. Viewers learn that for the last 50 years Colombia has been the scenario of a non-declared war amongst guerrilla and paramilitary groups. The documentary maker introduces then the social work of his great-uncle Jaime Santander SJ, an agrarian leader and reformer who in the 1960s changed the socioeconomic conditions of Manati, a small town of the Colombian Caribbean coast. The documentary goes on, then, with 12 miscellaneous portraits of Manati: 1. Peace: Two sociologist discuss the current violence in Colombia, later to introduce us to Manati, an exceptional model of peace in the region. They both believe that the relative prosperity of Manati is mainly due to the educational work of two Jesuit priests during the 1960s. 2. Health: a 10-minute Direct-Cinema sequence of a wounded man struggling to be attended by the only nurse available in the local health center. 3. Union: The sociologists point out that the strength of Manati relies on the local Union, a committee of about 100 peasants that has acted as the most influential social actor in the region. 4. Spirits: The documentary-maker has been warmly received by the people of Manati, who, as a matter of fact, see his journey as an spiritual return of their deceased leader Jaime Santander SJ. 5. Land: Peasants recount the history of their successful struggle for the land in the 1960s, in which 90,000 acres were given to the poor. They underline the immense work that Jaime did as their main advocate and protector. 6. Education: People of Manati talk about Jaime's last project: the creation of an unprecedented agrarian university in the region according to the Jewish self-sufficient project of the kibbutz. Mainly funded by the peasantry, the university only lasted three yeas, before going to bankruptcy due to the intestine ambitions of the very few and the lay-back attitude of the most. 7. Jaime: A brief portrait of the life of Jaime Santander, emphasizing his fight against the status quo. 8. Youth: The documentary-maker sees in the widespread unemployment amongst the young, the main cause of Manati's latent social problems.. Soon after the presentation of this docuemtnary in Manati in 2005, 80% of the young migrated to Venezuela for good. 9. Asogama: A 9-minute Direct-Cinema sequence of thebiggest cooperative of milk-producers in the region, in which Carlos Acuña (a peasant leader and a friend of Jaime,) asks a secretary to justify the many irregularities of the Cooperative accounting books. 10. Ethics: A view on the local attitudes about politics, sexuality, drug-traffic and the arm conflict in Colombia. 11. Economy: A brief glimpse of the current economy of the region, in which a new generation of poor peasants have replaced the no-longer-poor peasantry of the 1960s. 12. Manati: A short journey through the lagoon of Manati, in which the documentary-maker reflects on the material and spiritual value of his great-uncle's work. The documentary ends with a metaphoric image, in which a stalk flies tirelessly over the lagoon, finally to find a small quite place upon the earth.

• published: 16 Jun 2011
• views: 2674